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LANTERNS  IN  GETHSEMANE 


Lanterns  in  Gethsemane 

A  Series  of  Biblical  and  Mystical  Poems 

in  regard  to  the  Christ  in  the 

Present  Crisis 


BY 
WILLARD  WATTLES 


Neglect  no  small  beginnings, 
Despise  no  village  dearth: 
The  influence  of  Nazareth 
Went  out  to  all  the  earth. 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


COPYRIGHT,  igi8, 
BT  E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Printed  In  the  United  States  of  America 


•  YJ338Jb 


To  MY  FATHER  AND  MOTHER: 

If  there  be  aught  of  good  within  this  book 

it  is  they  who  have  dreamed  the  dream 

of  passion  and  of  faith 


623922 


Acknowledgment  is  made  to  the  following  publications  in 
which  poems  from  this  book  have  been  printed:  the  Inde 
pendent,  the  Outlook,  Contemporary  Verse,  the  Christian  Reg 
ister,  Harper's  Weekly,  the  Bookman,  the  Smart  Set,  the  Lyric, 
the  Midland,  the  University  Kansan,  the  Graduate  Magazine, 
the  Springfield  Republican,  the  Kansas  City  Star,  the  Emporia 
Gazette,  Seven  Arts,  the  Masses,  and  Poetry,  A  Magazine  of 
Verse. 


PREFACE 

One  hesitates  to  preface  such  a  book  as  this  with  ex 
planation.  In  many  ways  it  were  better  to  let  the  work, 
such  as  it  is,  meet  its  public  without  introduction.  But 
the  peculiar  personal  nature  of  the  verse  must,  even  un 
willingly  on  the  author's  part,  be  made  clear  for  the  sake 
of  those  to  whom  some  such  explanation  is  due. 

The  poems  of  this  book  are  the  result  of  an  experiment 
in  living  which  grew  out  of  two  memorable  experiences: 
one,  the  reading  at  about  ten  years  of  age  of  Rev.  Charles 
M.  Sheldon's  "In  His  Steps";  the  other  the  reading  seven 
years  later  of  "Each  in  His  Own  Tongue"  by  William 
Herbert  Carruth. 

The  first  of  "Lanterns"  to  be  written  was  Gethsem- 
ane"  in  1909,  followed  two  years  later  by  "The  Wil 
derness."  Such  a  poem  as  "Upon  the  Vatican"  was 
planned  for  five  years  before  being  set  on  paper  in  the 
summer  of  1918,  and  many  others  were  in  process  of 
preparation  for  as  long  a  time. 

The  material  of  the  book  has  been  drawn  from  the 
New  Testament  and  from  the  lives  of  the  author's  friends 
and  parents.  Hence,  in  a  certain  sense  he  has  been  a 
reporter.  Though  conscious  for  long  of  certain  ten 
dencies  toward  a  religious  and  spiritual  awakening  in 
Europe  and  America  now  patent  to  all  observers,  the 
author's  method  of  composition  has  been  to  search  con 
stantly  backward  along  the  trail  of  memories  for  the 
living  and  breathing  Christ  as  revealed  most  authen 
tically  in  the  heart.  Later,  he  often  has  discovered  that 


viii  PREFACE 

his  findings  were  not  original,  but  were  substantiated  by 
history  and  theology.  Perhaps  his  own  conceptions  may 
have  deepened  during  these  years  of  seeking ;  witness  the 
two  poems,  "Ere  Joseph  Came  to  Build"  and  "He  Speaks 
in  Threes,"  the  first  composed  in  1911,  the  second  two 
years  later.  On  the  other  hand,  "The  Builder"  was  writ 
ten  before  George  Moore  had  printed  "The  Brook  Ker- 
ith"  or  Frank  Harris  had  called  the  author's  attention 
to  Harris's  "Miracle  of  the  Stigmata,"  neither  of  which, 
in  spite  of  its  superior  artistry,  seems  quite  satisfactory 
in  its  interpretations.  The  writing  of  "Upon  the  Vat 
ican"  preceded  the  reading  of  any  delineation  of  St.  Peter 
by  Edgar  Lee  Masters. 

"An  Ode  for  a  New  Christmas"  was  published  in  the 
Christian  Register,  December  1 8,  1913.  In  view  of  the 
nature  of  the  stanzas  on  the  War  this  fact  may  be  of 
some  interest.  All  the  poems  are  personal,  many  of 
them  being  no  more  than  transcriptions  of  letters  from 
the  author.  "The  Bells  of  Death"  was  written  for  his 
father;  "He  Speaks  in  Threes"  for  his  sister;  and 
"Against  My  Second  Coming"  for  a  member  of  the  Mac- 
Dowell  Colony  whose  son  had  enlisted  at  the  beginning 
of  America's  participation  in  the  Great  War.  It  was  in 
the  quiet  haven  of  that  colony  in  memorial  to  Edward 
MacDowell,  Peterborough,  N.  H.,  that  eight  years  of 
these  writings  were  gathered  together  during  the  sum 
mer  of  1917,  and  the  ninth  year  planned. 

It  is  not  desirable  here  to  reveal  all  the  sources  of  this 
verse.  Yet  those  who  may  recognize  within  it  something 
of  their  own  most  gracious  memories  may  welcome  the 
assurance  that  this  book  is  merely  the  record  of  a  life 
blunderingly  spent  in  the  attempt  to  follow  "in  His 
steps,"  and  cheered  and  strengthened  by  the  brave  hearts 
of  the 

"Millions  who  humble  and  nameless 
The  straight  hard  pathway  plod." 


PREFACE  ix 

Perhaps  if  that  assurance  could  be  set  in  words,  it 
might  be  found  in  this  extract  from  a  letter  to  a  friend* 
now  a  member  of  the  American  Expeditionary  Force  in 
France,  and  written  some  two  years  ago: 

Searching  for  truth  fearless  of  consequences  and  open 
to  every  influence  that  could  lead  me  to  the  truth,  I  have 
at  last  emerged  from  much  darkness  into  a  belief  in  these 
things  and  a  knowledge  that  to  me  they  are  true: 

That  there  is  a  conscious  immortality  before  and  after 
this  present  existence,  and  that  there  are  means  of  com 
munication  open  with  those  who  now  or  at  some  other 
time  have  or  will  have  the  power  to  live, 

That  those  who  wish  immortality  may  have  it, 

That  Jesus  has  taken  a  human  part  more  than  once  in 
the  ordering  of  history  and  in  the  forming  of  men's 
minds, 

That  this  immortally  projected  personality  of  Jesus  is, 
so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  different  from  the  personality 
of  any  other  man  in  history,  and  as  such  is  known  to  me 
as  the  Christ, 

That  the  Christ  is  the  Christ  because  he  has  so  longed 
for  immortality  that  the  power  has  been  given  him  of 
assuming  a  personal  relationship  with  all  who  call  upon 
him  for  his  love, 

That  he  teaches  men  and  women  to-day,  as  yesterday, 
to  do  his  work, 

That  he  uses  all  sorts  of  people  to  his  purpose,  and 
that  he  is  using  me  and  those  I  love, 

That  he  has  revealed  himself  to  me  in  unquestionable 
ways,  both  in  my  heart  and  in  the  faces  of  those  whom 
I  have  loved, 

That  they  in  their  turn  have  looked  behind  my  face 
and  seen  the  Christ, 

That  God  is  love,  and  that  any  man  may  have  the 

*Lieut.  Robert.  C.  Westman,  killed  in  action  in  France,  Aug.  10, 
1918. 


x  PREFACE 

attributes  of  God  who  learns  to  serve  intelligently  his 
fellow-men, 

That  those  attributes  are  wisdom,  tolerance,  courage, 
loyalty,  service — and  immortality, 

That  other  people  are  trying  as  sincerely  and  as 
prayerfully  as  I  to  do  what  is  right, 

That  there  is  no  mistake  I  make  which  Jesus  does  not 
understand, 

That  as  I  wish  others  to  love  me,  so  do  they  ask  for 
my  faith  and  affection,  and  will  know  it  when  I  love 
them, 

That  he  is  most  truly  the  son  of  God  who  most  faith 
fully  performs  this  the  will  of  God,  to  serve  and  to  keep 
faith  cheerfully. 

WILLARD  WATTLES.. 
CAMP  FUNSTON,  KANSAS, 
Sept.  18,  1918. 


CONTENTS 

PACE 

LANTERNS * 

OF  A  SABBATH 2 

BUT  A  GREAT  LAUGHTER ?  3 

COME  WITH  ME 4 

I  AM  THAT  I  AM 6 

Two  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO 8 

YOUTH  APOLOGIZES 9 

RETURN 12 

"AGAINST  MY  SECOND  COMING  ..."      .       .       .       .  15 

AN  ODE  FOR  A  NEW  CHRISTMAS .17 

GABRIEL 22 

ERE  JOSEPH  CAME  TO  BUILD 23 

MARY,  MARY 27 

HE  SPEAKS  IN  THREES 28 

THE  WISE  MEN'S  STAR 32 

THE  BELLS  OF  DEATH 33 

THERE  WAS  A  MAN 39 

A  PAGE  FROM  AMERICA'S  PSALTER 40 

WHICH? 42 

ABEL  AND  CAIN 44 

THE  STRANGER 46 

xi 


xu  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

FRAGMENTS 47 

THE  WILDERNESS 48 

A  SECRET 60 

JERICHO 61 

THERE  WOULD  BE  No  WONDER  .       .       .       .       .       .63 

WINE  OF  CANA       .                    64 

MARY 67 

MARTHA 68 

THE  LADY  MAGDALEN 7° 

ABSOLUTION 71 

PISGAH 72 

PRAYER 73 

IN  His  OWN  COUNTRY 74 

LET  NOT  THEIR  DOUBTS 78 

Our  OF  THE  DESERT 80 

I  Now,  WALT  WHITMAN 81 

THE  LOOM 83 

THE  MYSTIC 84 

PETER,  THE  ROCK 85 

ASSURANCE 86 

ACCEPTANCE 88 

THE  WAY 89 

FOR  ONE  WHO  GOES 9° 

MIZPAH 91 

SOLOMON 93 

UNPARADISED 94 

FOR  A  MOUNTAIN  HOSTELRY 95 


CONTENTS  xui 

PAGE 

THE  GARDENER 97 

CREEDS 98 

» 

AN  EPITAPH  FOR  THE  DEVIL 99 

PRAYER  TO  THE  DEVIL 100 

NONCHALANCE 101 

THE  MONEY-CHANGERS .  102 

OLIVE-WOOD 103 

JOHN 104 

GETHSEMANE 106 

FAITH 109 

GOLGOTHA no 

THE  ONE 113 

THEY  HAVE  NOT  LOWERED  HIM 114 

THE  BUILDER:  I 115 

THE  BUILDER:  II 116 

UPON  THE  VATICAN 124 

DAWN 130 

THE  SEVENTH  VIAL 131 

ARMAGEDDON 138 

PATINS 139 

AN  INCANTATION 143 

NOT  BY  SLEEP  MAY  WAKING  DEEM 146 

SOMETIMES '  .       .  147 

AFFIRMATION 148 

THE  CYCLE 149 

WITNESS 150 

HAVE  I  BEEN  So  LONG  TIME  WITH  You?    .       .       .       .151 


LANTERNS  IN  GETHSEMANE 


LANTERNS 

IF  you  should  one  day  find  those  eyes  upon  you 
Whose  dear  wan  lids  once  closed  in  Galilee 
The  night  you  lowered  that  still  too  lovely  Burden 
From  one  high  cross  on  shadowed  Calvary; 

If  you  should  know  Whose  lips  are  sweet  with  languor, 
Whose  hands  still  hold  release  from  old  distress, 
And  sudden  rise  and  follow  when  He  calls  you 
To  your  own  cross  and  agony  no  less; 

If  you  should  hear  the  voice  that  whispered  to  you 
Tender  and  strong,  with  not  a  single  change 
From  that  good-by  when  lanterns  woke  the  Garden, 
Shatter  your  soul — would  it  seem  very  strange? 


OF  A  SABBATH 

THE  little  lonely  souls  go  by 
Seeking  their  God  who  lives  on  high 
With  conscious  step  and  hat  and  all 
As  if  on  Him  they  meant  to  call 
In  some  sad  ceremonial. 

But  I  who  am  a  pagan  child, 
Who  know  how  dying  Plato  smiled, 
And  how  Confucius  lessoned  kings, 
And  of  the  Buddha's  wanderings 
Find  God  in  very  usual  things. 

Mohammed  and  the  Brahma  led 
Me  past  the  gateway  of  the  dead, 
And  even  Astarte's  temple  dim 
No  less  than  Raphael's  cherubim 
Have  somehow  led  me  back  to  Him. 

I  would  not  take  from  them  their  faith 
That  somehow  Jesus  rose  from  death, 
Yet  strange  for  me  the  Crucified 
Stands  almost  breathing  by  my  side 
Who  do  not  think  he  ever  died. 


[2] 


BUT  A  GREAT  LAUGHER 

THEY  do  me  wrong  who  show  me  sad  of  face, 
Slender  and  stooped,  gentle,  and  meek,  and  mild, 
As  if  I  were  forever  reconciled 
To  sting  of  hate  and  bitter  of  disgrace. 
I  was  youth's  lover,  swiftest  in  the  race, 
Gay  friend  of  beggars,  brother  to  the  wild, 
No  lily-featured,  woman-hearted  child, 
But  a  great  laugher,  confident  of  place. 

Shepherd  and  fisher,  sailor,  carpenter, 

I  strode  the  hills  and  fellowed  with  the  sun, 

Knew  arms  and  bosoms  and  slow  steady  eyes, 
Felt  each  new  April  through  my  body  stir, — 
Then,  when  'twas  over,  and  the  loving  done, 
Even  with  a  smile  I  slew  my  enemies. 


COME  WITH  ME 

THERE  is  a  road  that  ventures  down 
Through  many  an  olive-shaded  town, 
By  many  a'  nook  where  I  have  seen 
The  Jordan  willows  turning  green, 
By  many  a  well  where  women  wait, 
By  many  a  barred,  unopened  gate, 
All  the  way  to  a  hill-side  house 
And  a  night  beneath  the  olive-boughs. 

And  I  have  strangely  come  upon 
A  walker  in  the  windy  dawn 
Who  has  not  found,  where'er  he  went, 
The  hand  or  face  that  brings  content 
Within  a  shy  and  shady  space, 
But  turned  away — I  knew  his  face 
For  one  I  summoned  long  ago; 
I  wonder  I  remember  so! 

I  have  called  him.    He  will  come 
With  youth  within  him  like  a  dniid, 
And  strength  within  him,  warm,  unspent, 
To  fold  peace  in  his  arms,  content, 
And  faith  within  him  like  a  star, 
And  feet  to  wander  with  me  far — 
I  would  not  show  to  every  one 
That  long  gray  pathway  in  the  sun. 

I  would  not  show  to  every  one 
The  road  that  I  have  come  upon, 
The  road  that  I  at  last  must  ride 
With  a  ragged  ass-colt  by  my  side; 
[4] 


COME  WITH  ME 


For  he  shall  know,  and  he  shall  see 
The  hill-side  house  of  Bethany, 
And  I  will  teach  him  many  things 
Of  purple  old  rememberings: 

Death  and  love  beside  me  sit, 
But  few  there  are  who  know  of  it. 


IS] 


I  AM  THAT  I  AM 

I  DO  not  murmur  I  am  thrown 
Upon  life's  empty  years, 
For  I  who  walk  with  death  for  friend 
Trade  not  with  fears. 

I  smile  to  look  at  other  folk 
Who  smile  to  look  at  me: 
They  little  know  what  eyes  I  have 
Nor  what  they  see. 

For  I  have  smiled  in  Nineveh, 
And  I  have  loved  in  Tyre, 
And  I  have  seen  fair  Helen's  face 
Fade  in  the  fire. 

When  Cleopatra  watched  the  work 
Of  poison,  I  was  there; 
Her  fingers  felt  my  breast  grow  cold, 
Her  harp  player. 

I  sought  three  arrows  that  were  sent 
The  friend  of  Jonathan, 
And  I  have  seen  the  moon  stand  still 
In  Ajalon. 

From  everlasting  I  am  come, 
To  everlasting  go, — 
The  pageant  of  the  centuries 
Can  work  no  woe. 
[6] 


/  AM  THAT  I  AM 

The  galley-master  beat  with  whips 
And  fed  me  broken  bread; 
I  faced  him  fairly  eye  to  eye 
Till  I  was  dead. 

I  drank  the  hemlock  cup  of  sleep 
And  bade  my  friends  be  still; 
I  hung  between  two  lonely  men 
Upon  a  hill. 

On  other  worlds  I  set  my  feet 
And  visit  other  stars, 
And  other  spears  have  pierced  my  side 
And  left  strange  scars. 

I  do  not  bend  to  men  of  scorn 
Nor  measure  what  they  say, 
For  all  their  generations  are 
But  as  a  day. 

I  look  behind  the  hearts  of  men, 
I  see  their  secret  thought, 
I  speak  in  ways  they  later  learn 
Were  meaning-fraught. 

And  yet  I  am.    Could  you  but  wish, 
Believe,  and  touch  my  hand, 
You  need  not  wait  till  after  years 
To  understand. 

[7] 


TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO 

(To  a  member  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association.) 

COULD  you  have  welcomed  me 

In  flat-roofed  Bethany, 

Or  climbed  the  way  to  death 

Out  of  gray  Nazareth, 

Or  later  stood  beside 

Me  when  my  body  died, 

Watching  in  a  tomb 

The  spiritual  bloom 

When  souls  come  back  to  see 

Their  own  Gethsemane 

With  wounded  hands  and  side 

That  will  not  be  denied, — 

Would  you  have  risen  then 

Witnessing  to  men 

That  I  had  died  in  vain 

Who  now  have  come  again? 

Still  with  eager  face 
You  track  my  deathless  grace, 
Yet  with  what  little  faith 
Thinking  I  died  in  death, 
As  if  so  old  a  book 
Could  tell  you  how  I  look 
Even  when  I  bend 
Like  an  accustomed  friend 
Bearing  on  my  lips 
Love's  mute  apocalypse, — 
Two  thousand  years  ago, 
And  still  you  do  not  know! 
[8] 


YOUTH  APOLOGIZES 

SOMETHING  ON   THE  SUBJECT  OF  PROPHETS 

OUT  of  the  cloud  of  baffled  questionings 
The  Truth  some  unexpected  moment  springs, 
So  near  at  hand  that  her  familiar  face 
Is  hidden  by  the  wonder  of  her  wings. 

And  some  there  are  who  laugh  the  prophet  down, 

Contending  him  no  prophet,  but  a  clown: 

Ah,  long  ago  it  was  in  Nazareth 

The  people  stoned  a  prophet  from  the  town. 

For  he,  they  said,  was  much  an  egotist 
Claiming  Jehovah  kept  an  earthly  tryst, 
As  if  God  cared  for  carpenters,  so  they 
Tongued  their  pale  cheeks  and  politely  hissed. 

"How  should  it  be,"  I  hear  it  said  among, 
"He  should  know  anything  who  is  so  young?" 
Ah,  God,  could  I  prevail  to  move  thy  will, 
I  pray  Thee,  be  no  evil  on  my  tongue. 

How  should  it  be  that  anything  is  known 
Except  that  those  who  long  to  see  are  shown; 
How  long  is  life  for  those  who  fear  no  death, 
And  oft  caressing,  have  familiar  grown? 

I  swear  that  I  could  break  between  my  hands 
The  bubble  Time  like  sea-kelp  on  the  sands 
And  laugh,  and  fling  the  fragments  to  the  sea 
Where  some  gray  crag  for  centuries  upstands. 
[9] 


YOUTH  APOLOGIZES 

Youth  is  a  fiction  from  the  sophist  sprung, 
Age  but  a  cry  from  the  muezzin  flung, 
Calling  the  Faithful  a  moment  unto  prayer — 
There  is  no  death  for  those  whose  hearts  are  young. 

And  if  Age  be  so  fleeting,  then  in  sooth, 
Who  shall  define  the  limits  unto  Youth? 
Be  man  immortal  to  remember  things, 
Perhaps  some  pre-existence  taught  him  truth. 

"Ah,"  but  you  say,  "the  young  make  much  ado 
Declaring  they  divide  the  false  from  true; 
Yet  when  their  dreams  are  dead  like  withered  flowers 
They  shall  indeed  be  wise  as  I  or  you. 

"And  all  the  sum  that  we  have  lived  to  learn 
Is  that  hearts  ache  and  eyes  bum, 
And  there's  an  end  for  every  lovely  thing, 
The  day  that's  gone  will  nevermore  return. 

"The  bird  has  flown  and  left  the  song  unsung; 
We  touched  a  flower,  the  petals  dropped  in  dung" 
— I  may  be  mad,  my  masters,  and  you  wise: 
Haply  you  may  forgive  me,  I  am  young. 

Leave  youth  to  bluster,  knowing  he  will  creep 
Sobered  at  last  to  his  eventual  sleep, 
And  he  shall  lie  lower  than  root  of  tree 
And  snows  above  him  shall  drift  deep. 
[10] 


YOUTH  APOLOGIZES 

Leave  youth  his  dream,  and  let  him  think  it  true; 
Have  you  forgotten  how  you  dreamed  it,  too? 
Smile,  if  you  will,  but  smile  indulgently, 
As  gently  as  your  elders  smiled  at  you. 

And  if  youth  set  his  lance  at  some  mad  wheel 
Or  charge  at  meal-bags  in  excess  of  zeal, 
Remember,  Don  Quixote  seemed  a  fool — 
But  unto  Sancho  Panza  he  was  real. 


RETURN 

WISE  man,  wise  man, 
Fingers  and  thumbs, 
Which  is  the  way 
That  Jesus  comes? 

Wise  man,  wise  man, 
Rabbi,  priest, 
Did  you  ever  see  a  man 
On  such  a  poor  beast? 

Wise  man,  wise  man, 
I  saw  a  lame  child, 
And  when  he  came  by 
Jesus  smiled. 

Jesus,  Jesus, 
How  do  you  come? 
"To  those  who  are  halt 
And  blind  and  dumb." 

My  knee  was  sprung 
And  I  couldn't  see, 
So  I  climbed  up  high 
In  a  jujube  tree. 

Jesus,  Jesus, 
What  are  you  worth? 
"The  sun  and  the  moon 
And  the  little  round  earth." 

[12] 


RETURN 


Jesus,  Jesus, 

Sing  me  a  song. 

"I  can't  stop  now 

For  the  road's  too  long." 

Jesus,  Jesus, 

Go  along,  Lord; 

My  knee  is  straight 

As  the  governor's  sword. 

Jesus,  Jesus, 
Go  along  before 
To  a  high  house 
With  a  silver  door. 


But  I'll  stop  first 
To  clean  my  feet, 
And  then  sit  down 
In  the  chimney-seat. 

And  Jesus  will  laugh 
And  say  it's  good 
That  I've  moved  into 
His  neighborhood. 

When  he  lights  his  pipe 
I  think  he'll  scratch 
The  Morning-Star 
For  his  safety  match. 
[13] 


RETURN 


We'll  drink  all  night 
From  a  good  brown  cup 
And  not  go  to  bed 
Till  the  sun  comes  up. 

Wise  man,  wise  man, 
Fingers  and  thumbs, 
This  is  the  way 
That  Jesus  comes. 


[14] 


"AGAINST  MY  SECOND  COMING    .    .    ." 

"AGAINST  my  second  coming," 

Christ,  the  Lord,  hath  said, 
"Provide  with  driven  thunder 

The  nations  for  my  bed, 
Make  plain  the  path  before  me 

With  lightning  from  the  skies 
When  unbelief  shall  open 

And  all  the  dead  arise. 

"With  patience  beyond  wisdom 

And  knowledge  beyond  grace 
I  have  prepared  my  peoples 

At  last  to  bear  my  face; 
By  many  intimations 

The  final  truth  is  known, 
And  all  the  lone  discover 

They  never  were  alone. 

"Against  my  second  coming," 

The  good  Lord  Jesus  saith, 
"Ten  million  young  men  lightly 

Shall  charge  the  gates  of  death, 
Until,  grown  still  with  wonder, 

They  know  how  far  they  came 
Through  many  habitations 

Eternally  the  same. 

"Behold,  I  knit  the  nations 

With  instant  words  of  light, 
And  on  the  clouds  of  heaven 

My  winged  feet  are  bright; 
[IS] 


AGAINST  MY  SECOND  COMING 

Beneath  the  seas  I  smite  them, 
And  through  the  mountain's  core 

The  splendor  of  my  coursers 
Escapes  the  granite  door. 

"The  shining  page  my  hill-side, 

I  need  no  special  sea, 
For  fishing-boats  are  paper 

And  oceans,  Galilee. 
I  walk  no  more  among  you 

On  brown  and  lovely  feet, 
But  yet  my  hand  is  on  you, 

And  still  my  lips  are  sweet. 

"My  perfect  consummation 

Ye  cannot  put  aside. 
I  am  the  living  Jesus 

Who  will  not  be  denied; 
The  moment  of  your  anguish 

When  all  seemed  dead  but  death, 
I  drew  you  to  my  bosom,"  .  .  . 

The  good  Lord  Jesus  saith. 


[16] 


AN  ODE  FOR  A  NEW  CHRISTMAS 

WHILE  others  write  that  thou  art  born,  O  Christ, 
Let  me,  with  large  security  of  faith, 
Write,  Thou  art  dead! 

Dead  and  forgotten,  and  in  a  cold  tomb  lying 
By  some  lone  hill  outside  Jerusalem 
While  the  dear  mold  of  thy  forsaken  body 
Long,  long  ago  has  fed  the  twisted  stem 
Of  some  wild  olive's  wind-whipped  diadem 
Tossed  by  the  tempest, — hear  the  great  winds  crying, 
Christ,  the  Christ  is  dead! 

Dead  and  forgotten,  though  the  world's  cathedrals 
Trembling  with  music,  blossom  into  stone. 
Up  the  mighty  transept  of  the  lonely  ages, 
Censers  swinging,  see  the  nations  pass 
Sceptered  and  mitred,  with  the  keys  of  heaven, 
Shifting  shadows  in  a  darkened  glass. 
Gleaming  croziers,  children  crimson-stoled, 
Glory  of  garments,  emerald  and  gold, 

What  a  wondrous  show  they  make, 

Singing,  Jesus,  for  thy  sake, 
And  thou  upon  the  hill-side  lying  stark  and  lone. 

But  hark,  a  terrible  thunder  is  borne  on  the  wings  of 
time, 

The  earth  is  shaken  with  battle  and  black  with  the  can 
non's  breath, 

A  hundred  gory  legions  leap  at  the  throat  of  death, 

And  a  million  million  corpses  rise 
With  flaming  eyes 

[17] 


AN  ODE  FOR  A  NEW  CHRISTMAS 

As  the  walls  of  beleaguered  cities  are  swarmed  in  the 

name  of  Christ 
And  dead  men  drop  from  the  battlements  as  fast  as  tne 

living  climb. 

The  seas  are  swollen  with  ship-wreck  and  mighty  arma 
das  sweep 
For  one  little  golden  moment  the  heaving  floor  of  the 

sea, 
Then  sudden  the  heavens  are  loosened  and  down  to  the 

fathomless  deep 

The  shattered  bones  of  nations  are  drifting  aimlessly. 
The  Cross  and  the  Crescent  in  conflict,  emperor,  pope, 

and  king, 
Broadsword  hacking  at  broadsword,  arrow  and   lance 

and  sling, 

Bayonet  and  javelin,  sword  and  scimitar, 
And  the  scythe  of  Death  the  reaper,  who  laughs  when 

the  nations  war, 
The  trumpets  and  drums  of  onslaught,  the  standards 

streaming  red, — 
Christ  is  deadl 

No  more  the  fillets  white 
Press  the  pale  brow  of  Phrygian  prophetess, 
Nor  from  Apollo's  shrine  breathes  forth  the  oracle  di 
vine. 
The  gods  of  Greece  and  Rome  are  one  with  Nineveh  and 

Tyre; 
And  the  red  fire, 

[18] 


AN  ODE  FOR  A  NEW  CHRISTMAS 

The  clang  of  cymbal  and  of  brass, 
Affright  no  more  the  silences  of  night. 

Behold  them  pass, 
Isis  and  Demeter,  jovial  lacchus, 
Buddha,  Mohammed,  Odin,  Priapus, 
And  dumb  Astarte  with  the  haunting  eyes; 

The  woods  are  silent  to  their  mysteries, 
The  shadows  echoless. 


And  must  Thou,  too,  follow  their  little  fame, 
Christ  of  Golgotha  and  Gethsemane, 
Is  all  the  beauty  of  thy  spirit  shame, 
When  men  can  murder  in  thy  gentle  name 
And  raise  thy  cross  to  shelter  blasphemy? 
Blasphemy  of  God  and  thou  His  messenger, 
To  drone  in  churches  to  their  perfumed  pews 
Empty  hosannas  on  the  Christmas  morn 
When  in  vile  brothels  and  in  shameless  stews 
Some  unacknowledged,  birth-cursed  Christ  is  born 
Of  some  sad  madonna  whom  the  good  folk  scorn. 

Not  in  far-off  and  lonely  Bethlehems 

Is  that  low  manger  in  the  naked  shed; 

Not  by  the  walls  of  dead  Jerusalems 

Lies  the  scarred  body  and  the  weary  head; 

But  here,  each  day,  with  hands  that  clasp  and  cling, 

With  faces  stained  by  foul  disease  and  shame, 

With  bodies  bowed  beneath  the  cross  they  bring, 

Walk  the  sad  Christs,  "hungering  and  lame. 


AN  ODE  FOR  A  NEW  CHRISTMAS 

Here  on  the  western  horizon  a  waiting  people  lies, 
Born  of  the  centuries'  travail,  swaddled  in  prophecies, 
Sprung   from   the   loins   of   Europe,   flushed   with   the 

strength  of  youth; 
Lead  us,  O  Christ,  to  know  thee  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

Not  through  the  empty  mazes  of  old  theology, 
Hiding  thy  simple  message  in  intricate  words, 
Throning  thee  in  the  heavens,  turning  your  life  to  a 

creed, 

You  who  knew  as  a  brother  the  call  of  a  brother's  need, 
Who  knew  the  glory  of  serving,  of  facing  with  fearless 

eyes 

The  shame  of  a  dead  religion's  charneled  hypocrisies, 
And  drove  in  thy  flaming  anger  with  a  whip  of  knotted 

cord 
The  shrinking  slaves  from  the  Temple,  who  buy  and  sell 

their  Lord. 

Come  to  us,  O  Jesus,  come  as  you  came  of  yore 

When  you  walked  with  Andrew  and  Peter  by  the  Gal 
ilean  shore, 

And  called  to  the  young  men  fishing,  as  I  to  the  hearts 
of  men, 

Is  it  strange  that  the  loving  Jesus  should  wander  his 
world  again? 

Out  of  the  daily  sacrifice  of  the  mother  for  her  children, 
Out  of  the  tender  love  of  the  father  who  faces  a  certain 

death  that  his  little  ones  may  live, 
Out  of  the  wisdom  of  old  people  who  see  more  than 

their  grandchildren  see, 

[20] 


AN  ODE  FOR  A  NEW  CHRISTMAS 

Out  of  the  innocent  questions  of  babies,  and  the  beauti 
ful  strength  of  young  men, 

Out  of  the  purity  of  young  girls  and  the  wide-eyed  won 
der  of  their  dreams, 

Out  of  the  deep  love  of  comrades  who  never  tell  their 
love, 

Out  of  all  that  is  true  and  strong  and  divine  in  the  weak 
est  and  most  sinful, 

I  will  lead  the  hearts  of  men  to  know  the  real  Jesus, 

The  lover  of  men  and  of  women  and  of  little  children, 

The  interpreter  of  all  the  loveliness  of  earth  and  of  a 
life  not  lived  alone; 

And  in  America  I  shall  found  for  him  a  new  and  ever 
lasting  kingdom, 

The  kingdom  of  human  love  in  the  democracy  of  kind 
ness; 

And  then  with  the  voice  of  thanksgiving  and  with  the 
sound  of  world-rejoicing 

We  shall  cry  aloud — all  of  us — new-found  comrades  and 
lovers, 

"Christ  is  not  dead! 

He  liveth  and  worketh  in  common  with  God  the  Father, 
And  his  dwelling-place  is  in  the  homely  heaven  of  the 
human  heart  1" 


[21] 


GABRIEL 

MARY  walked  in  the  daisies 
Along  a  winding  way; 
The  wind  came  by  and  touched  her, 
Her  face  was  glad  and  gay; 
Something  nested  in  her  heart,  .  .  . 
The  sad  Christ  smiled  that  day. 

For  God  had  grown  so  lonely 

On  his  throne, 

He  put  his  staff  on  his  shoulder 

And  set  off  alone; 

Among  the  scornful  brambles 

He  laid  his  head  on  a  stone. 

Mary  bore  the  daisies 
Home  in  her  two  hands, 
Daisies  of  white  petals 
For  all  the  lonely  lands, 
That  will  not  fade  or  vanish 
While  the  arch  of  Heaven  stands. 


[22] 


ERE  JOSEPH  CAME  TO  BUILD 

CHILD  of  my  love,  oh  little  tousled  head 
And  warm  cheek  nestling  near  thy  mother's  heart, 
Around  us  now  the  black  Egyptian  night 
Fringed  with  the  breathless,  shining  host  of  stars 
Folds  us  in  silence  as  I  strain  thee  here 
Against  my  happy  side, — I  am  content. 

Only  the  sighing  of  the  deathless  winds 
From  out  the  desert  spaces,  and  the  sands 
That  lash  round  Joseph's  ankles,  plodding  slow 
With  gray,  bent  head  and  patient,  sandaled  feet 
So  still  I  scarce  can  hear  him  through  the  dark 
Searching  the  road,  the  donkey's  taken  breath 
That  shakes  me  with  its  steady  rise  and  fall, 
And  thou,  dear  restless  sleeper,  at  my  breast 
With  thy  half-smothered  wail  so  sudden  stopped, 
These  only  break  the  brooding  quietness 
That  lurks  in  shade  along  our  stealthy  path. 

Before  us  stretch  the  dim  and  dusky  realms 
Whence  Moses  led  the  Chosen  long  ago 
Into  the  land  which  now  his  children  flee — 
On  this  same  road,  perhaps,  where  Benjamin 
Wept  that  the  cup  was  found  within  his  sack 
Unknowing  whose  the  love  that  placed  it  there, 
And  turned  him  back  from  home  to  Joseph's  arms. 
To  Joseph's  arms, — aye! — not  such  as  lead 
Before  me,  even  now,  my  halter-rope; 
For  he  was  young  and  strong,  with  smooth  round  arms 
[23] 


ERE  JOSEPH  CAME  TO  BUILD 

That  must  have  clasped  with  rough  sweet  tenderness 
So  close  it  hurt,  his  brother's  slender  form, — 
Such  arms  as  cling  about  my  body  still 
Until  I  swoon  remembering, — hush  my  babe. 

And  so  we  pass  across  the  desert  sands, 
The  child  and  I,  our  beast,  and  Joseph  there 
With  patient  steps,  my  husband  whom  they  gave. 
My  husband, — yes,  for  women  must  obey; 
They  are  not  wise  to  choose  what  suits  them  best, 
And  he  had  birth, — besides,  a  steady  trade, 
Was  sage  and  sober,  just  and  kind  to  rule 
Within  his  house, — what  more  could  woman  wish? 

Ah  yes,  what  more?    Oh,  timid  new-made  wives 
With  frightened  eyes  that  plead  for  gentleness, 
And  lips  that,  half-reluctant,  yield  their  store 
Of  rifled  sweetness  to  a  ruthless  strength 
That  crushes  them  with  kissing,  fearfully 
When  ye  set  out  upon  that  nameless  road 
All  women  travel  with  the  man  they  love, 
Whence  there  is  no  returning,  can  there  be 
One  thing  ye  pray  to  find  along  the  way, 
Which,  if  ye  find  not,  turns  to  mockery 
All  that  ye  hoped  for  in  your  setting-out, 
Until  your  heart  dies  in  you  .  .  .  ? 

And  yet  he  loves  me, — as  a  father  would 
A  fragile  child  that  plays  about  his  house 
And  must  be  humored  for  her  cheeriness 
Lighting  the  dark  old  rooms  that  else  were  sad. 
[24] 


ERE  JOSEPH  CAME  TO  BUILD 

So,  even  I  into  his  lonely  heart 
Stole  like  a  sunbeam  when  he  came  to  build 
My  father's  flat-roofed  house  of  mighty  beam 
Upon  the  olive-slope;  and  when  'twas  done, 
In  payment,  asked  to  take  me  as  his  wife. 
And  since  he  came  of  David  and  the  kings, 
And  builded  well,  and  owned  himself  a  house 
A  maid  would  joy  to  govern, — I  was  wed. 


He  has  been  kind, — too  kind  sometimes,  I  think — 
Until  I  pity  his  dumb  loneliness 
That  married  spring  to  winter,  selfishly, 
As  did  his  withered  grand-sire  long  ago 
Warming  his  clammy  palms  in  younger  hands, 
When  he  had  done  with  singing  and  with  love. 
And  I  have  tried, — oh  God,  how  have  I  tried! — 
Still  to  be  faithful,  for  he  could  not  know 
Of  all  I  left  behind  to  follow  him. 


But  now  as  through  the  soft  and  noiseless  sand 
We  flee  along  the  path  that  camels  tread, 
Past  the  dim  huddled  camps  of  caravans 
Into  the  desert  spaces  where  the  stars 
Seem  far  away  like  ghosts  of  burnt-out  lamps 
That  haunt  the  dusky  chambers  of  the  night, 
There  breathes  upon  the  shadow-freighted  wind 
The  clear  insistent  summons  of  a  voice 
That  calls  me  back  along  the  way  we  come. 
[25] 


ERE  JOSEPH  CAME  TO  BUILD 

Nay,  God,  I  will  not  hear  it, — close  my  ears, 
Pity  Thy  handmaid, — see,  I  draw  my  veil 
Tighter  about  me,  shutting  out  the  wind 
And  the  voice  with  it. 

(No,  I  am  not  cold, 

Joseph,  my  husband,  not  so  very  tired, 
And  yet  I  shivered;  let  us  hasten  on.) 
Again  his  voice!     It  creeps  through  every  stop 
Calling  my  soul;  and  yet  I  will  not  heed. 

(Faster,  still  faster,  Joseph;  dawn  will  come 
When  we  can  flee  no  longer;  faster  still!) 

I  cannot  shut  it  out;  nay,  let  it  call 
And  I  will  hear  it  though  it  slay  my  soul. 
Will  feel  his  arms  about  me,  and  his  breath 
Sweeter  than  cassia  buds  upon  my  cheek, 
With  lips  that  pluck  my  very  life  away 
Leaving  me  more  than  life,  his  deathless  love 
That  nestles  in  my  bosom,  even  now, 
With  baby  fingers  minding  me  of  him. 

So,  let  me  dream  my  happy  little  dream 
As  in  the  days  ere  Joseph  came  to  build. 
Sure,  God  will  not  begrudge  it, — only  that; 
And  Joseph?    Well  I  know  not;  God  is  just. 


[26] 


MARY,  MARY  .  .  . 

THERE  was  a  son  whom  Mary  had, 
A  little  thoughtful  lad, 
Whose  heart  held  many  a  whispered  word 
That  might  have  made  him  mad. 

Mary,  Mary,  where  is  he 
Who  walked  so  slow  and  soberly? 
I  saw  a  shining  face  like  yours 
Once  in  Galilee. 


1*7] 


HE  SPEAKS  IN  THREES 

JOSEPH,  my  husband,  I  pray  you,  come, 
Throw  down  the  adz  and  leave  the  little  shop. 
I  have  great  news,  something,  my  love,  I  dreamed 
Or  else  I  saw  it.    Here  where  the  step  is  smooth 
Worn  with  the  faithful  passing  of  your  feet, 
Let  us  sit  down,  for  I  have  news  to  tell. 

Such  news,  my  lover,  oh,  such  good,  good  news. 

Look  at  me,  Joseph,  read  it  in  my  eyes. 

Surely  you  see  it;  nay,  but  you're  a  man, 

And  men  are  slower — See,  you  know,  you  know. 

Is  it  not  strange  that  love  can  be  so  still? 
One  moment  earth  is  humdrum — nothing  more; 
Linen  to  whiten,  floors  to  sweep  and  sand, 
Butter  to  mold  and  olives  to  be  culled, 
And  oh,  the  weary  ache  of  back  and  knee — 
Then  a  great  rush  of  flaming  splendid  wings, 
A  face  that  blinds  one  with  strange  loveliness, 
A  voice  that  conquers  all  abyss  of  space, 
And  earth  has  leaped  to  heaven  at  a  bound. 

And  so,  my  Joseph,  I  had  set  the  curd 
To  harden  in  the  window-ledge  and  turned 
Back  to  the  table  where  I  pressed  it  out; 
I  heard  a  swallow  underneath  the  eves, 
I  felt  the  vineyard  musk  blow  in  the  door, 
My  heart  stopped  beating, — and  I  knew. 
[28] 


HE  SPEAKS  IN  THREES 

Oh,  I  have  longed,  my  Joseph,  for  this  hour, 
And  wondered,  sometimes,  if  my  flesh  could  bear 
The  great  sudden  leaping  of  my  soul,  feared  almost. 
—That  was  before  I  knew  you,  years  ago, 
When  I  was  yet  a  slender,  wide-eyed  girl 
Cuddling  wee,  strange-made  babies  at  my  breast, 
With  knobs  for  noses  and  round  funny  ears, 
Little  gourd-babies,  but  I  loved  them  so. 

Then  I  grew  older,  and  went  to  the  well, 
And  brought  the  heavy,  earthen  pitchers  home, 
But  scarcely  heard  my  mother's  gentle  voice 
Bidding  me  hasten,  for  I  dreamed  I  felt 
My  arms  grow  burdened  with  a  load  that  clung 
And  pressed  my  bosom  with  a  tiny  hand. 

And  then  you  came  ...  I  stood  beside  the  door 
And  saw  you  turn  the  little  narrow  street, 
Dusty  with  travel,  but  your  eyes  were  true. 
I  loved  you,  Joseph,  as  I  love  you  now. 
For  you  have  been  so  patient  and  so  kind, 
So  strong  to  lean  on  and  so  gentle  when 
You  could  have  been  so  cruel.    Surely,  God 
Has  walked  beside  me  like  a  tender  friend, 
And  I  have  known  His  mercy,  dear,  in  you. 

I  do  not  think  that  God  is  far  away. 
They  say  that  Abram  knew  him  as  a  friend, 
And  Moses  saw  him  on  Mount  Sinai, 
And  Samuel  heard  him  calling  in  the  night: 
[29] 


HE  SPEAKS  IN  THREES 

Surely,  he  does  not  leave  us  all  alone; 
I  think  I  could  not  live  if  God  were  not. 
Even  with  you,  my  Joseph,  there  are  times 
I  do  not  miss  you  as  I  ought  to  do, 
Yet  if  God  left  me,  Joseph,  I  should  die. 

See,  here  I  lean  upon  you  and  my  lips 
Meet  yours;  your  hand  is  welded  with  my  own, 
Yet  are  we  separated  though  I  yearn 
To  press  you  closer.    Love,  we  cannot  meet. 
There  are  strange  bars  that  God  has  set  between 
All  lovers  since  he  made  the  first  to  love. 
Only  through  Him  who  moves  within  us  both 
Are  we  made  one  who  else  were  sundered  flesh; 
And  God  is  nearer  to  the  two  of  us 
Than  I  to  you  or  you  to  me.    'Tis  best, 
For  were  we  mingled,  water  into  wine, 
We  should  forget,  in  loving,  God  who  loves. 

He  speaks  forever  in  the  threes  of  life, 
Husband  and  wife  and  little  clinging  child, 
And  in  our  baby,  Joseph,  God  comes  down. 
Something,  my  husband,  is  there  yet  to  do, 
Together  we  shall  labor,  you  and  I, 
And  he  shall  know,  our  little  laughing  son, 
How  near  to  heaven  is  a  perfect  home. 

We  cannot  shield  him  from  the  storming  years, 
We  cannot  feed  him  but  with  homely  fare, 
And  he  must  stagger  through  life's  sweat  and  pain; 
Yet  have  we  something  Caesar  could  not  buy, 
[30] 


HE  SPEAKS  IN  THREES 

Nor  haughty  Herod  in  his  purple  ease, 
And  he  shall  have  it  richly  without  stint, 
The  perfect  tribute  of  unselfishness, 
Our  love,  my  husband,  and  his  heritage. 

And  he  shall  know  it  when  he  is  a  man 
How  God  can  stoop  and  walk  with  men  in  love, 
And  lean  upon  them  with  a  friendly  arm, 
And  mingle  with  earth's  lovers  when  they  cling, 
Till  every  baby  is  a  child  of  God. 
And  he  shall  call  all  men  to  walk  with  God, 
Women  and  children  shall  he  lead  and  love, 
Strong  with  great  hands  that  clasp  men  to  his  heart, 
Pure  with  white  faith  that  makes  the  blind  to  see, 
Melting  the  deaf  ear  with  his  tenderness, 
Till  men  shall  hear  the  very  speech  of  God, 
Knowing  our  son's  hand  on  them,  and  his  eyes 
Deep  with  all  knowledge,  remembering  our  love. 

So  shall  we  do  our  little  in  God's  world, 
Not  by  mad  deeds  that  set  the  hills  ablaze 
And  thunder  down  the  avenues  of  time; 
But  just  by  loving  with  a  love  so  great, 
So  pure  and  strong  and  sweet  and  wonderful 
That  God  himself  will  stoop  and  call  it  good; 
I  think  there  is  much  blessing  in  a  home. 
— Now  I  am  weary,  Joseph;  help  me  in. 


THE  WISE  MEN'S  STAR 

I  FELT  the  arms  of  little  children  clinging 
About  my  throat  a  short,  sweet  while  ago; 

Within  my  heart  I  heard  a  father  singing 
The  white,  shy  song  that  I  may  never  know. 

Dear  chubby  hands  that  dimple  like  pink  roses 
When  dew-drops  kiss  them,  as  I  bent  to  kiss, 

What  haughty-sceptered  emperor  imposes 
Allegiance  half  so  free  and  sure  as  this? 

Blue  baby  eyes  that  open  wide  with  wonder 
And  pure  as  just  unfolded  pansies  are, 

What  spell  is  this  ye  put  a  strong  man  under, — 
Is  this  the  secret  of  the  Wise  Men's  star? 


[32] 


THE  BELLS  OF  DEATH 

HOW  THE  THREE  WISE  MEN  FOLLOWED  THE  STAR 

SON,  I  will  heed  you,  hearken  while  ye  may, 
My  strength  is  ebbing,  shadows  close  me  in, 
And  I  can  hear  the  women  wailing  low 
Beside  the  entrance;  hear  the  camels  breathe 
Heavily,  and  feel  your  arm  beneath  my  head. 

You  shall  be  sheik  of  many-herded  hills, 
Lord  of  the  desert,  brother  of  the  wind, 
Master  of  swarming,  dusky-throated  tribes 
Almost  as  numberless  as  are  the  sands 
A»d  twice  as  restless — but  thy  arm  is  strong 
And  God  hath  blessed  thee  when  he  made  thee  wise. 


Yea,  I  will  tell  thee  how  I  saw  the  child 
On  that  strange  journey  to  Jerusalem, 
In  those  glad  days  when  I  was  young  and  dreamed, 
And  saw  great  visions  flash  among  the  stars, 
And  felt  the  throbbing  of  the  desert's  breast, 
And  thrilled  in  touching  all  the  friendly  hands 
That  leapt  to  meet  my  clasping,  swift  and  sure — 
Such  friends  as  thy  Balthasar  is  to  thee. 
Such  dreams  as  flushed  the  beauty  of  thy  face 
One  night  gone  by,  when  I  hung  o'er  your  bed 
In  the  dim  watches  when  you  fell  asleep, 
Wearied  with  tending  him  who  gave  thee  life. 
So  even  I,  your  father,  crept  away 
[33] 


THE  BELLS  OF  DEATH 

From  this  dull  couch  that  holds  me  prisoned  now, 
And  crouched  beside  you  for  one  thankful  hour, 
Blessing  that  God  who  gave  to  me  in  age 
To  see  my  body's  image  live  again. 

Damp  was  your  forehead,  and  your  breath  was 

warm, 

Smiling  your  lips,  and  peaceful  still  your  face 
Where  the  dark  lashes  of  your  eyelids  drooped 
Over  your  cheek,  and  ruddy  health  sat  crowned 
Upon  his  dusky  throne  of  sandalwood. 
Then  was  my  soul  uplifted  and  I  cried: 
"I  fear  not  now  the  parting  of  the  ways, 
I  go  to  meet  the  shadows;  but  I  live 
Body  and  soul,  in  him  I  leave  behind. 
No  death  can  shroud  the  eyes  that  children  close." 

Yea,  I  must  hasten,  hold  me  to  your  breast 
Until  your  manhood  feeds  my  dying  flame, 
Only  so  long  as  needs  to  end  the  tale. 
Even  now  I  hear  the  jingling  bells  of  Death 
Riding  his  camel  through  the  silent  sand 
Nearer  and  ever  nearer — hold  me  close. 

Twas  in  those  days  of  wonder  long  ago 
There  gleamed  one  night  within  the  desert  sky 
In  white  magnificence,  a  stranger  star 
Than  ever  yet  had  herded  on  the  hills 
Of  heaven;  white  its  fleece  and  knit  of  thread 
Spun  of  the  moonbeams,  shining  through  the  night, 
[34] 


THE  BELLS  OF  DEATH 

Ever  and  ever  eastward  beckoning 
Until  I  rose  and  followed,  drunk  with  awe, 
Shimbar,  the  camel,  racing  with  the  wind, 
And  I  upon  him  fronting  toward  the  star. 

i 

Afar  behind  me  stretched  the  ghostly  sands, 
Billow  on  heaving  billow  like  the  sea 
Stilled  in  its  restless  motion  changelessly. 
Bathed  in  the  mystic  glamor  of  the  star, 
Ever  before  me  stretching  seemed  the  way, 
Leaving  the  gray  horizon  streaked  with  dawn, 
Climbing  the  long,  white  pathway  of  the  star, 
Until  I  scarce  had  noticed  at  my  side 
The  swift,  light  running  of  two  camels  more, 
And  knew  Balthasar  followed  after  me, 
Selekmar  with  him,  in  their  eyes  the  star. 

So  through  the  night ;  but  when  the  great  red  day 
Climbed  in  his  splendor  over  the  eastern  sands, 
Paling  the  whiter  beauty  of  the  night, 
We  slept  beneath  the  slender-shading  palms 
Where  in  a  tiny  hollow  bubbled  up 
The  spring  that  vanished  in  the  amorous  air 
As  that  white  star  within  the  arms  of  day. 
Then  on  again  as  soon  as  set  the  sun 
Behind  us,  weltering  all  the  world  in  flame, 
Onward  and  ever  eastward  toward  the  star 
That  nightly  seemed  to  stoop  more  near  to  earth 
And  those  three  faces  flushed  and  eager-eyed. 
Until  one  morning  when  the  dawn  was  gray 
[35] 


THE  BELLS  OF  DEATH 

We  saw  the  mighty-walled  Jerusalem 
With  her  great  temple  like  a  priceless  pearl 
Hid  in  the  swarthy  bosom  of  a  queen, 
Gleam  marble-white  from  out  the  dusky  town. 


And  yet  the  star  still  beckoned  past,  the  gates 
Ever  to  eastward,  drooping  lower  now 
Until  it  blazed  so  strangely  terrible 
It  seemed  well-nigh  to  hem  us  round  about 
In  radiance  of  thousand  flashing  wings, 
And  witness  of  unseen,  observing  eyes. 
But  when  we  stopped  a  passing  morning  flock 
Of  goats  the  herdsman  drove  to  sacrifice, 
He  could  not  see  the  glory  of  the  star 
Although  it  shone  more  brightly  than  the  sun. 
Fang-toothed    he   was,    with   knotted,    close-clutched 

hands, 

And  busy  eyes  that  traveled  with  his  flock 
So  ceaselessly  he  never  saw  the  sky. 
Onward  he  plodded  up  the  dusty  road, 
And  left  behind  the  clamorous,  bleating  wind; 
He  thought  us  mad  to  go  in  search  of  stars. 

The  east  was  paling,  but  the  star  stood  clear 
And  drove  the  sun  back  with  a  flaming  sword. 
Then  to  the  southward  fled  we  with  the  wind, 
Until  at  last  we  came  to  Bethlehem, 
Shut  in  the  jealous  hills  that  shoulder  close, 
And  in  a  stable  found  the  new-born  babe. 
[36] 


THE  BELLS  OF  DEATH 

Closer,  my  son,  strength  of  my  body's  strength, 
Warm  with  the  youth  that  once  my  pulses  throbbed — 
The  jingling  bells  ring  clearer  through  the  night, 
And  Death  rides  swift  across  the  shifting  sand. 

But  what  saw  we,  sons  of  the  desert  wind, 
In  that  white,  pain-transfigured  mother  face 
That  brought  us  kneeling?    Only  her  great  dark  eyes 
And  feeding  breast,  and  weary  smile  of  pride. 
And  yet  together,  shoulder  to  shoulder  there, 
We  knelt  in  silence,  worshiping  the  child. 

Then  through  me  surging  swept  a  wave  of  awe, 
Cresting  my  reason  with  wild  harmony 
And  wordless  music  of  low  plaintiveness, 
Sweet  as  the  lullabies  that  mothers  croon — 
Only,  the  stars  were  singing,  and  the  sun 
Struck  out  ten  thousand  molten  notes  at  once 
From  the  vast  circle  of  his  wheeling  moons. 
And  through  the  corridors  where  planets  flame 
Rolled  the  long  reverberations,  echoing. 

I  was  at  one  with  chaos  when  God's  word 
Formed  from  the  void  Creation's  crystal  shell. 
Within  me  leapt  my  immortality; 
Back  to  His  love  I  stretched  me  through  my  sires, 
And  knew  that  forward  through  the  centuries 
My  children's  sons  would  round  the  circle  home. 
God  stirred  within  me  and  I  knew  His  face 
[37] 


THE  BELLS  OF  DEATH 

Shining  upon  me  with  the  self-same  peace 
That  smiled  in  slumber  from  your  perfect  lips 
One  night  gone  by  when  I,  your  father,  knelt 
Beside  your  body  all  one  thankful  hour 
And  saw  at  once  beginning  and  the  end, 
The  past  and  future  hand  in  hand  with  God. 

And  now  thou  knowest — hark!    Again  the  bells — 
The  lights  grow  dim — the  women,  too,  are  still — 
The  dawn-wind  rises.     So,  with  Death  I  mount 
And  make  my  last,  long  journey  toward  the  Star! 


[38] 


THERE  WAS  A  MAN  .  .  . 

THERE  was  a  Man  in  Galilee 
Who  talked  as  simple  as  could  be, 
Saying  men  should  brothers  be — 
This  lonely  Man  of  Galilee. 

There  was  a  Man  of  Olivet 
Whose  strong  voice  reaches  to  us  yet 
Across  the  centuries'  clamor — yet 
There  was  a  Man  of  Olivet. 

There  was  a  Man  on  Golgotha 
Whose  eyes  grew  dim  at  what  they  saw- 
Yet  clear  to  me  is  what  they  saw, 
The  dying  Man  on  Golgotha. 

Come,  walk  by  Lake  Gennesaret: 
I  saw  a  Fisher  with  his  net, 
Draw  silver  planets  in  his  net — 
How  quiet  is  Gennesaret! 


[39] 


A  PAGE  FROM  AMERICA'S  PSALTER 

ACROSS  the  bitter  centuries  I  hear  the  wail  of  men: 
"Oh,  would  that  Jesus  Lord,  the  Christ,  would  come 

to  us  again. 

We  decorate  His  altars  with  a  ceremonious  pride, 
With  all  the  outward  shows  of  pomp  His  worship  is 

supplied: 
Great  churches  raise  their  mighty  spires  to  pierce  the 

sunlit  skies 

While   in   the  shadow  of   the   cross  we  mutter  blas 
phemies. 


"We  know  we  do  not  do  His  will  who  lessoned  us  to 

pray, 
'Our  Father,  grant  within  our  lives  Thy  kingdom  rule 

to-day.' 
The  prayer  he  taught  us,  once  a  week  we  mouth  with 

half-shut  eye 
While  in  the  charnel-house  of  words  immortal  meanings 

die. 

Above  our  brothers'  frailties  we  cry,  'Unclean,  Unclean.' 
And  with  the  hands  that  served  her  shame,  still  stone 

the  Magdalene. 


"We  know  within  our  factories  that  wan-cheeked  women 

reel 
Among  the  deft  and  droning  belts  that  spin  from  wheel 

to  wheel. 

[40] 


A  PAGE  FROM  AMERICA'S  PSALTER 

We  know  that  unsexed  childhood  droops  in  dull-eyed 

drudgery. 

The  little  children  that  He  blessed  in  far  off  Galilee, — 
Yet  surely,  Lord,  our  hearts  would  grow  more  merciful 

to  them, 
If  Thou  couldst  come  again  to  us  as  once  in  Bethlehem." 


WHICH? 

RICH  and  fat  was  the  altar  feast 

For  the  holy  flame  that  day: 
But   there  in   the  pool   from   the  slain  lamb's 
throat 

A  slender  body  lay, 
While  the  Horror  stiffened  each  lovely  limb 

And  kissed  the  red  lips  gray. 

Far  over  the  desert  a  shadow  flees 

In  the  glare  .of  the  angry  sun: 
Is  it  man  or  ghost  or  hunted  beast, 

Or  sand  by  the  whirlwind  spun, 
And  why  does  it  run  and  look  behind, 

And  look  behind  and  run? 

The  yellow  hair  of  the  white  boy-priest 

Is  damp  with  a  ghastly  dye: 
Can  he  not  raise  those  perfect  hands 

From  his  bosom  where  they  lie, 
And  why  does  he  stare  at  the  noonday  sun 

With  such  a  fearless  eye? 

He  does  not  smile,  he  does  not  stir, 

But  still  the  shadow  flees: 
It  cannot  be  that  sound  is  bora 

On  such  wan  lips  as  these, 
Yet  surely  shadows  never  sobbed 

In  such  strange  agonies. 
[42] 


WHICH? 


Across  the  desert  of  the  world 

Still  stumbles  in  his  pain 
The  Man  who  killed;  and  yet,  which  is 

The  slayer,  which  the  slain, 
The  delicate-fingered  Abel,  or 

The  shamed  and  branded  Cain? 


[43] 


ABEL  AND  CAIN 

Two  brothers  in  a  far  and  lonely  land 

Built  up  two  uncouth  altars  out  of  stone, 

And  on  them  laid  their  labor's  offering 

To  that  High  Power  who  bids  men  sweat  and  toil. 

One  brother  lifted  high  his  slender  hands 

And  bent  his  dainty  knee  upon  the  earth; 

For  he  had  bleating  flocks  that  multiplied 

Even  as  he  watched  them,  lying  in  the  shade, 

Fingering  his  whittled  reeds  that  thrilled  in  song 

And  dreaming  all  the  summer-tide  away. 

What  need  had  he  to  soil  those  tender  palms 

With  touch  of  earth?    His  flocks  were  fat  and  sleek, 

And  ever  upward,  ever  thicker,  rolled 

The  smoke  from  off  the  altar  he  had  made. 

"One  frightened  lambling  from  its  mother  torn 

Would  not  be  missed  among  so  many  sheep, 

And  yet  its  flesh  would  feed  an  altar-flame 

As  well  as  any" — so  he  knelt  and  prayed. 

The  older  brother  likewise  lifted  up 
His  hands  beside  the  altar  he  had  built 
Gnarled  were  his  fingers  as  the  roots  of  trees 
On  some  high  cliff  that  clutch  the  desperate  slope, 
Fearing  to  slip  within  the  gulf  below. 
Bare  was  his  body,  and  the  knotted  cords 
Stood  out  upon  his  clumsy-muscled  knees, 
That  were  too  stiff  for  bending;  so  he  stooped 
Half  crouching  in  the  weary  droop  of  toil, 
With  dumb  defiance  glooming  in  his  eyes, 
[44] 


ABEL  AND  CAIN 

And  lips  that  scarce  could  lisp  his  Maker's  name. 

The  smoke  that  smoldered  round  his  offering 

Sagged  earthward,  stifling,  when  he  tried  to  pray. 

No  fleecy  lamb  lay  on  his  altar-fire, 

Blazing  in  crackling  savor  up  to  Heaven; 

A  few  scant  roots,  a  withered  bunch  of  leaves, 

Wet  still  where  he  had  grasped  them  sweaty-palmed. 

And  one  green  melon  that  his  vines  had  borne 

To  all  his  painful  tending,  choked  the  flame 

That  whitening  crept  among  them — so  he  prayed. 

And,  since  in  that  lone  country  far  away 
One  brother  rose  and,  swift  in  anger,  slew, 
Upon  his  brow  his  Maker  set  a  sign 
That  men  should  know  the  deed  that  he  had  done. 
But  what  the  sign  He  set,  no  man  has  known 
From  that  blood-sprinkled  day  of  shame  to  this; 
Though  still  two  altars  rise  in  every  State 
And  still  two  brothers  bring  their  offering. 

Arise,  O  Abel,  kiss  that  Brother's  brow 
Before,  too  late,  it  bear  the  brand  of  Cam. 


[45] 


THE  STRANGER 

A  STRANGER  walked  the  crowded  streets  upon  the  Christ 
mas  day 

In  tattered  coat  and  ragged  shoes,  with  lips  so  drawn 
and  gray, 

That  Christian  folk  who  passed  him  by  and  saw  his 
patient  eyes 

Half  paused  in  wonder  at  the  prayer  of  his  dumb  mis 
eries. 

The  stinging  wind  was  bitter  keen,  and  icy  sharp  the 
snow, 

"But  beggar-folk  are  often  shams,  and  fakirs,  don't  you 
know," — 

With  half-averted,  doubting  glance  they  hurried  on  their 
way 

While  o'er  the  Stranger's  gentle  face  the  veil  of  sorrow 
lay: 

Not  one  of  all  the  goodly  throng  who  called  upon  His 
name, 

That  day  or  ever  knew  Who  passed  in  lowly  weeds  of 
shame. 


[46] 


FRAGMENTS 

I  AM  a  searcher  of  faces, 

I  am  a  seeker  of  hearts 
In  lonely  and  desolate  places, 

In  immaterial  marts. 

*  *          *  *          *          3 

It  is  enough  to  wander 

Through  all  the  busy  day; 
It  is  enough  to  squander 

The  things  we  throw  away. 

*  ***** 

It  little  matters  that  the  things  we  set 
Do  not  return  in  ways  we  recognize: 

Each  of  us  mounts  in  turn  his  Olivet 
And  finds,  alone,  Tophet  or  Paradise. 

*  ***** 

Only  those  who  are  lonely, 

Broken  and  worn  and  sad, 
These  are  my  people  only, 

These  will  I  render  glad. 
Go  let  the  stricken  deer  go  weep, 

The  hart  unwounded  play; 
For  some  must  find  and  some  must  seek, 

And  some  must  roll  the  stone  away. 

*  *          *          *          *          * 


[47] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

WHY  do  I  falter,  now  my  hour  has  come: 

Can  one  man's  choice  mean  either  this  or  that? 

I  grow  presumptuous.    'Twas  not  God  who  called  1 

The  Prophets  now  are  coffined  with  the  Past; 

They  walk  no  more  among  us  as  of  yore 

In  those  great  days  when  God  abode  with  men; 

His  voice  is  silent,  lo  these  centuries. 


He  calls  no  more  across  the  empty  years, 
The  wrangling  years  so  filled  with  clamoring, 
The  clink  of  barter,  and  men's  littleness 
Pushing  and  pulling  at  the  Infinite 
As  if  'twere  linen  in  a  mercer's  shop 
And  they  could  measure  with  a  three-foot  rod 
Of  disputation,  what  is  measureless. 
No  wonder  He  is  silent,  while  men  shout. 

And  yet  there  was  a  time  when  men  believed 
That  they  could  find  Him  in  the  burning  bush, 
Or  hear  Him  in  the  watches  of  the  night 
Waking  the  sleeper,  or  mingle  in  the  cloud 
With  His  great  presence  on  Mount  Sinai. 
He  walked  within  the  Garden  of  the  World 
Startling  the  guilty  silence  with  His  voice; 
He  couched  within  the  ark  of  shittim  wood; 
The  stone  was  graven  at  His  finger-tip 
And  men  could  read  in  Nature  His  decrees. 
He  strode  before  them  in  a  cloud  by  day, 
[48] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

He  fed  them  on  the  manna  of  His  love, 
The  desert  gushed  in  fountains  at  His  touch, 
And  in  the  mystery  and  wonder  of  the  night 
He  wrestled  limb  to  limb  with  human  kind. 

Oh,  to  have  felt  the  swelling  thews  of  God, 
The  crushing  anguish  of  His  vast  embrace, 
To  strain  against  His  mighty-heaving  chest, 
And  feel  strength  draining  from  one  drop  by  drop, 
One's  shoulders  nearing  inch  by  inch  his  doom, 
And  still  to  struggle,  knowing  that  He  asks 
No  tame  and  feeble-kneed  antagonist 
Who  cringes  fawning,  but  He  rather  loves 
That  soul  who  questions,  doubts,  and  scorns  to  yield 
Without  one  desperate  trial  of  his  strength 
Before  he  smiles  and  whispers,  "I  am  thrown." 

Those  were  the  days  when  Prophets  walked  with 

God, 

And  found  Him  near  them  in  the  wilderness 
When  they  went  out  to  meet  Him  face  to  face, — 
God  sends  no  ravens  to  Elijahs  now. 

And  though  perhaps  it  was  not  God  who  called 
When  John  had  hailed  me  with  his  prophecy, — 
And  those  mad  eyes  that  shine  upon  me  still, 
And  his  great  body  white  and  beautiful, — 
Yet  was  it  something;  for  I  felt  a  stir 
That  ripened  all  my  being  suddenly, 
As  if  a  sunbeam  pierced  a  lily's  heart 
[49] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

And  loosed  the  molten  fragrances  that  bound 
Her  aching  bosom,  till  it  burst  in  bloom 
And  glowed  beneath  the  quivering  lips  of  day. 
It  seemed  my  soul  was  somehow  strangely  new, 
As  if,  across  the  bending  heads  of  wheat 
Trembling  between  their  milky-kerneled  youth 
And  mellow  richness,  of  maturity, 
In  that  expectant  moment,  came  a  breath 
Warm  from  the  very  sun-kissed  cheeks  of  June, 
And  when  the  wind  had  passed  the  grain  was  set. 

So,  when  John  touched  me,  all  at  once  my  soul 
Trembled  to  feel  it,  and  the  voice  of  God 
Burst  with  the  glory  of  magnificence, 
Drowning  my  senses,  till  I  rather  felt 
The  thunder  of  His  presence  than  I  heard. 

But  now  within  the  wilderness  I  wait, 
Alone,  and  far  from  Jordan's  crowded  bank. 
The  flame  that  warmed  me,  now  has  sunk  to  ash, 
And  I  am  hungry,  strengthless,  and  forgot. 
The  moon  has  grown,  and  waned,  and  grown  again, 
And  still  I  wrestle  with  God's  purposes, 
Weaker  and  ever  weaker;  and  I  fear 
The  scuttling  shadows  lurking  by  the  rocks, 
Where  fiery  eyes  creep  nearer  every  night, 
Until  I  almost  hear  their  eagerness 
Sniffing,  and  wrinkling  up  their  silken  lips 
Over  the  gleaming  of  their  cruel  teeth. 
The  desert  creatures  throng  me  hungrily, 
Perhaps  to-night  they  banquet, — let  them  come. 
[So] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

Better  the  quick  leap  and  the  rending  fangs, 
The  momentary  anguish  warm  with  blood, 
The  merciful  swift  death  that  wild  things  deal, 
Than  to  be  torn  upon  the  breakers  of  the  world, 
Impaled  with  scornful  shafts  of  mocking  men, 
Each  truth  we  die  for  jeered  and  spit  upon, 
Naked  and  beaten,  stoned  from  house  to  house, 
Scourged  by  those  hands  that  we  have  tried  to  clasp, 
Cursed  by  those  lips  that  we  once  hoped  to  kiss. 

One  way  is  open, — join  the  common  crowd, 
Perhaps  more  merciful  in  deed  than  they 
And  thinking  one's  own  thoughts,  but  quietly; 
Run  with  the  herd  in  body,  but  reserve 
The  right  to  enter  in  one's  privacy 
A  secret  chamber  where  the  spirit  dwells 
Apart  from  all  appearance,  unrebuked: 
No  need  is  there  to  throw  oneself  on  death 
When  life  is  all  before  one,  rich  in  love. 

And  who  can  live  life  more  intense  than  I? 
The  Galilean  hills  are  full  of  friends, 
Timid  and  slender  wild  things  cross  my  path 
And  stop  to  eye  me,  fearlessly  and  tame, 
Soft,  furry  things  that  slumber  in  my  breast. 
I  know  where  every  sparrow  lays  her  young 
Along  the  plastered  walls  of  Nazareth; 
The  earliest  lily  lifts  for  me  her  cup 
And  fills  it  with  a  draught  of  morning-dew. 
Above  me  when  I  drift  on  Galilee 
[Si] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

The  quiet  stars  shine  out  like  brother  souls, 
And  through  the  tattered  sail  the  wind  sifts  down, 
Brushing  my  cheeks  with  fragrance  of  the  night 
And  whispering  me  to  silence  and  to  sleep. 

But  not  alone  with  this  great  comradeship 
Is  my  whole  being  filled  as  if  with  wine. 
The  children  run  to  meet  me  in  the  street, 
And  cling  about  me  till  I  lift  them  up 
Where  they  can  stretch  their  tiny  chubby  hands 
Along  my  cheeks,  and  laugh  to  see  the  eyes 
That  mirror  back  a  little  laughing  face. 
And  I  have  known  old  men  the  fever  racked 
Grow  calm  and  quiet  when  I  hold  their  hands 
Or  brush  away  the  anguish  from  their  brows, 
Until  I  tremble  with  a  tenderness 
That  seems  to  soothe  them  till  they  fall  asleep 
Clasping  my  strong  cool  hands  upon  their  breasts; 
I  cannot  help  but  love  them  slumbering, 
Such  strangely  sweet  and  pitiful  old  men! 

I  know  not  why  it  is;  'twas  ever  thus; 
All  faces  turn  to  follow  when  I  move. 
It  may  be  that  I  am  so  young  and  strong, 
So  fresh  with  all  the  tang  of  wind  and  sea, 
So  glowing  with  the  sweetness  of  the  sun 
That  seems  like  a  great  brother  on  the  hills 
When  I  have  climbed  the  sandy,  shrub-clad  slopes, 
Above  the  drowsy  streets  of  Nazareth, 
That  tired  women,  flushed  with  household  tasks 
[52] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

And  bent  with  aching  shoulders  grinding  corn, 
Feel,  when  I  enter  at  their  low-beamed  door, 
As  I  do  when  the  cooling  twilight  breeze 
Warns  me  to  lay  my  adz  and  maul  aside, 
And  roam  beyond  the  little  narrow  town 
Far  out  upon  the  hills  alone  with  God. 
For  I  have  seen  such  women  lift  their  eyes 
When  I  looked  in  upon  them  at  their  work, 
And  all  the  toil-worn  faces  softened,  till 
They  seemed  transfigured  with  a  sudden  peace 
As  if  they  caught  a  vision  of  God's  love: 
'Tis  wonderful,  and  leaves  me  half  afraid, 
So  glad  I  am  that  I  can  make  them  smile. 

As  sweet  to  me  as  children's  clinging  hands, 
Old  men  that  slumber,  or  tired  women's  eyes, 
And  strong  as  the  deep  swell  and  surge  of  sea 
That  lifts  a  weary  swimmer  to  the  shore, 
The  love  of  young  men,  reverence  of  friends, 
And  eloquence  of  eyes  that  answer  mine 
When  all  the  rest  is  silence, — those  who  work 
Beside  me  day  by  day  at  bench  or  wall, 
Strong  backs  and  sturdy  limbs  that  lift  and  strain 
Until  the  beam  is  swung  into  its  place 
And  swift,  sure  blows  have  driven  it  safely  home; 
My  brother  Joses  with  his  merry  face, 
And  all  the  workers  at  my  father's  trade. 

Strength  answers  strength,  at  work  or  on  the  shore 
Leaping  to  breast  the  waters  of  the  lake, 
When  toil  is  ended  and  my  comrades  run 
[S3] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

Along  the  level  sand-beach  boyishly, 

And  jump  and  wrestle,  tumbling  over  nets, 

Until  the  evening  star  o'er  Galilee 

Warns  us  to  don  our  tunics  and  retrace 

The  hill-path  back  to  sleepy  Nazareth. 

Then  through  the  moonlight  side  by  side  we  walk, 

Scarce  speaking,  till  the  long,  brown  path  leads  down 

Between  the  shadowy  houses,  and  we  part 

To  sleep  a  sleep  untroubled  until  dawn. 

So  speed  the  careless  days,  one  after  one, 
Friendship,  and  evening  calm,  and  working-hours, 
Each  sure  and  certain  to  be  brimming  o'er 
With  health  and  comradeship  and  happiness, 
All  these  are  mine, — why  should  I  lose  them  now 
By  blindly  following  a  sudden  whim? 
Perhaps  God  called  me,  but  I  need  not  heed. 
Life  is  too  full  of  love  and  hope  and  youth 
To  turn  the  foaming  cup  upon  the  sand. 
If  only  I  keep  silent,  I  am  safe; 
There  is  no  need  of  making  stones  of  bread. 

And  yet  as  in  the  wilderness  I  lie, 
With  those  strange  shadows  skulking  in  the  shade, 
I  seem  to  hear  the  rabbi's  droning  voice, 
Perched  high  above  me  in  the  synagogue, 
Rustling  the  parchment:     "It  is  written  here, 
Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  and  flesh  alone, 
But  by  each  word  from  out  the  mouth  of  God." 
[54] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

"By  bread  alone?"    Can  it  be  there  is 
In  this  wild  turmoil  of  uncertainty 
Some  boon  unguessed  of,  that  outweighs  secure 
And  selfish  comfort?     Can  man  throw  away 
His  life  and  find  it?    Must  he  tell  the  truth 
Regardless  of  all  doubters,  face  the  mob 
That  lusts  to  tear  him  limb  from  limb,  and  still 
March  out  to  meet  them,  bravely  confident? 
It  may  be  so;  the  truth  is  still  the  truth, 
Although  a  village  rise  to  cry  it  down. 
And  if  God  lead  me  through  the  cloud  awhile, 
I  shall  be  safe  if  I  cling  to  His  hand: 
He  keeps  my  feet;  His  love  supports  me  still; 
In  His  good  time,  I  shall  emerge  some  day. 

And  yet  why  wait  upon  Him:  is  there  not 
Some  quicker  way  to  reach  the  goal  desired? 
The  harvest  of  the  centuries  is  late, 
And  slowly  move  the  axles  of  the  years; 
It  cannot  be  that  man  must  wait  so  long. 
Suppose  some  masterly  heroic  soul, 
Bold  with  victorious  triumph,  flushed  with  power, 
Bending  the  nations  to  his  purposes, 
Should  seize  the  reins  of  empire,  and  erect 
Upon  the  prostrate  world  his  mighty  throne. 
Oh,  how  easy  'twere  to  rouse  the  restless  tide 
That  surges  underneath  the  Roman's  feet, 
Chafing  and  eddying  like  the  undertow 
That  sweeps  a  sturdy  swimmer  out  to  sea 
When  he  is  most  secure,  arm  Palestine, 
[55] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

Call  in  all  Asia,  join  hands  with  the  Greeks, 
And  push  the  purple  tyrant  from  his  throne; 
The  time  is  ripe;  the  nations  murmuring, 
The  leader  only  missing, — why  not  I? 

Even  at  the  thought  I  feel  my  strength  renewed 
As  when  a  runner  nears  the  welcome  goal 
After  a  weary  journey;  for  I  see  it  all, 
The  dark  and  seething  turmoil  of  the  tide 
That  sets  toward  conquest,  and  the  Jewish  faith 
That  looks  to  see  Messias  raise  them  up, 
Throw  off  their  yoke  of  bondage,  heal  their  stripes, 
And  found  the  endless  bastions  of  his  realm 
Upon  the  ruins  of  empires  and  of  Time. 

Strange  tales  were  spread  about  me  at  my  birth: 
There  needs  but  little  fanning  to  the  flame, — 
When  once  the  tinder  of  revolt  is  set, 
It  grows  with  quenching,  and  it  leaps  so  swift 
No  eye  of  man  can  follow  its  mad  course. 
I  need  but  stand  upon  the  Temple  steps, 
Proclaim  myself  Messias,  sent  of  God, 
And  all  Jerusalem  will  surge  at  once 
In  such  a  wild,  fanatic  tidal  wave 
Of  frenzied  fury,  that  its  foaming  crest, 
Gathering  the  deeps  of  Asia  to  its  arms, 
Will  whelm  the  mighty  sovereignty  of  Rome 
Upon  its  seven  hills,  until  the  world 
Reverberates  beneath  the  shuddering  blow 
And  topples  in  engulfing  surge  of  war. 
[56] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

Then  shall  Messias  knit  the  nations'  hands 
In  that  new  empire  of  man's  brotherhood, 
The  long  anticipated  Golden  Age 
That  prophets  told  of  in  their  mighty  moods 
And  dreamers  fashioned  in  their  heart  of  hearts, 
The  new  Jerusalem  of  comradeship 
That  God  ordained  some  day  would  come  to  pass 
When  men  were  weary  of  their  wars  and  hates, 
When  lamb  and  lion  should  lie  down  together, 
And  children  should  climb  round  them,  unafraid. 
Is  not  such  Empire  worth  a  little  fraud, 
Such  glorious  perfection  worth  the  trial, 
When  one  bold,  masterly  heroic  brain 
Can  hasten  with  his  help  God's  mighty  plan? 
All  things  are  possible  to  him  who  dares 
The  bold  audacity  of  one  great  lie, — 
The  kingdoms  of  the  world  are  mine  to  keep! 

Once  more  upon  the  desert  wind  there  breathe 
Strange  memories  of  rustling  parchment  rolls: 
"Serve  only  God,— no  other;  Truth  is  Truth." 

I  cannot  hide  me,  Father,  from  Thy  face; 
Within  the  deeps  I  hid  me — Thou  wert  there; 
And  when  I  climbed  the  steep  ascent  of  heaven, 
Beyond  the  farthest  star-beam  Thou  wert  there! 
One  and  Eternal,  everlasting  Thou! 
The  Truth  is  Truth,— behold  I  serve  but  Thee! 

And  so,  my  Father,  do  I  yield  Thee  up 
My  life  to  fashion  to  Thy  purposes, 
Forsaking  comfort,  empire, — following  Thee 
[57] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

In  confidence  where'er  Thy  guidance  lead. 

One  thing  I  pray  Thee,  leave  me  only  this, 

One  broken  morsel  from  Life's  laden  board, 

One  rose-bud  smiling  from  the  bitter  thorns, 

One  star  to  guide  me  in  the  darkest  night; 

For  Thou  hast  said  that  Thou  wouldst  guard  and  keep 

That  man  who,  fearless,  trusted  all  to  Thee 

And  dared  to  follow  Truth  and  boldly  die, 

Casting  himself  from  off  the  pinnacle 

Of  all  his  soul's  ambitions,  all  his  hopes, 

Yielding  his  highest  and  his  best  to  Fate, — 

Yet  still  would  give  him  knowledge  of  himself, 

The  faith  to  stake  all  on  a  single  throw 

And  meet  reverses  smiling,  confident 

That  God  will  not  forsake  him  in  his  need. 

Give  me  Thy  angels  to  uphold  my  feet, 
Lest  in  my  fall  I  dash  against  a  stone; 
Give  me  to  know  that  Right  is  ever  Right, 
And  I  shall  fear  no  evil  though  I  die. 

My  God,  my  God,  I  cannot  let  Thee  go, 
I  crouch  beneath  the  shadow  of  Thy  wing, 
Without  Thee,  I  am  nothing.    Cover  mel 

Again  the  rustling  of  the  parchment  rolls; 
My  soul  is  slain  within  me:  "Tempt  not  God. 
That  soul  deserves  Him  not  who  cannot  walk 
Alone  into  the  outer  darknesses 
Beyond  God's  love,  and  find  Him  in  the  void. 
He  knows  not  God  who  has  not  stood  alone." 
[58] 


THE  WILDERNESS 

Father,  I  yield  me;  shape  me  to  Thy  hand, 
Bend  me,  or  mar  me,  cast  me  from  Thy  face; 
Thou  canst  not  take  away  my  love  for  Thee; 
Only  by  loving  may  one  learn  to  love. 

And  so  I  meet  the  morrow  quietly. 
Let  come  what  will,  night  follows  after  day, 
And  after  night  the  dawn;  each  day  will  pass 
One  like  the  other,  one  day  at  a  time. 
For  though  I  know  the  Prophets  are  no  more, 
And  God's  great  loving  voice,  men  say,  is  hushed, 
He  walks  no  more  among  us, — still  I  trust 
That  He  is  nearer  than  we  sometimes  think; 
Perhaps  men  cannot  see  Who  walks  beside, 
Nor  hear  His  voice  when  He  speaks  tenderly: 
Our  ears  are  filled  with  idle  clamoring, 
Our  eyes  are  dazzled  with  too  near  a  view, 
We  walk  with  God  each  day  and  know  it  not. 

The  fortieth  night  is  passing;  I  must  rise 
And  with  the  morning  seek  my  mother's  house; 
Then  forth  to  wander  where  He  leads  the  way. 
'Tis  such  a  simple  message  that  I  bear 
A  child  can  grasp  it;  surely  so  will  men: 
"God  is  our  Father, — let  His  sons  be  kind." 


[59] 


A  SECRET 

COME,  I  will  show  you  a  thing  beyond  knowing, 
This  is  the  land  where  the  Israelites  fled; 
No  one  has  seen  them  to  know  of  their  going 
Save  an  old  man  with  a  scar  on  his  head. 

Come,  I  will  whisper  a  secret  I'm  keeping, 
This  is  the  land  where  Goliath  was  slain; 
Down  in  the  meadow  a  farmer  boy  sleeping 
Found  David's  sling,  and  lost  it  again. 

Come,  I  will  sing  you  a  song  when  I'm  older 
About  a  young  man  who  was  dead  on  a  hill; 
They  shut  up  his  body  behind  a  big  boulder 
...  I  have  a  sign  that  he  never  lay  still. 


[60] 


JERICHO 

JERICHO,  Jericho, 
Round  and  round  the  walls  I  go 
Where  they  watch  with  scornful  eyes, 
Where  the  captained  bastions  rise; 
Heel  and  toe,  heel  and  toe, 
Blithely  round  the  walls  I  go. 


Jericho,  Jericho, 

Round  and  round  the  walls  I  go. 
All  the  golden  ones  of  earth 
Regal  in  their  lordly  mirth.  .  .  . 
Heel  and  toe,  heel  and  toe, 
Round  and  round  the  walls  I  go. 


Jericho,  Jericho, 
Blithely  round  the  walls  I  go, 
With  a  broken  sword  in  hand 
Where  the  mighty  bastions  stand ; 
Heel  and  toe,  heel  and  toe, 
Hear  my  silly  bugle  blow. 


Heel  and  toe,  heel  and  toe, 
Round  the  walls  of  Jericho.  .  .  , 
Past  the  haughty  golden  gate 
Where  the  emperor  in  state 
Smiles  to  see  the  ragged  show 
Round  and  round  the  towers  go. 
[61] 


JERICHO 


Jericho,  Jericho, 

Round  and  round  and  round  I  go. 
All  their  sworded  bodies  must 
Lie  low  in  their  towers'  dust  .  .  . 
Heel  and  toe,  heel  and  toe, 
Blithely  round  the  walls  I  go. 

Heel  and  toe,  heel  and  toe, — 
I  will  blow  a  thunder  note 
From  my  brazen  bugle's  throat 
Till  the  sand  and  thistle  know 
The  leveled  walls  of  Jericho, 
Jericho,  Jericho,  Jericho 


[62] 


THERE  WOULD  BE  NO  WONDER 

THEY  are  very  stately 

Who  found  the  way  for  walking 
Upstairs  and  downstairs, 

And  such  important  talking! 

They  are  very  happy 

Who  counted  wine  so  sweet 
They  did  not  care  for  leavened  bread 

When  they  came  to  eat. 

They  are  very  careful 

Who  can  read  the  rune 
I  have  hidden  lightly 

In  this  quiet  tune. 

< 

If  every  one  could  understand 

All  that  letters  spell, 
There  would  be  no  wonder 

In  a  miracle. 


[63] 


WINE  OF  CANA 

THE  wine  has  failed?    Nay,  Mother,  cease  thy  plaint, 
Why  seek  ye  me,  a  stranger  at  the  feast? 
It  was  not  I  who  bade  so  many  guests; 
And  if  they  swarm  as  locusts  round  the  bins, 
What  wonder  if  they  scour  the  threshing-floor: 
Can  men  expect  to  drain  an  emptied  cup? 

.    Already  has  the  feast  dragged  out  too  long; 
I  weary  of  the  wailing  zither  strings, 
The  empty  clashing  of  cracked  tambourines, 
The  mirthless  jests  a  third  time  cackled  o'er 
By  nodding  graybeards  with  the  eyes  of  goats 
That  set  the  bride's  pale,  frightened  face  aflame. 

Do  ye  not  see  her  lips  too  tired  to  smile, 
The  lashes'  curtain  lifted  wearily, 
And  the  big,  brooding  wonder  of  her  eyes 
That  see  as  Moses  from  Mount  Pisgah's  height 
The  strange,  glad  nearness  of  the  Promised  Land, 
See  and  half  fear  and  know  they  see  in  vain? 

Can  wine  run  warmer  through  the  bridegroom's  limbs 
Than  that  strong  flood  that  sets  its  tide  toward  her 
And  in  the  very  mid-leap  of  its  confidence 
Is  stilled  as  quiet  as  the  ocean  pool 
Flung  by  the  mad  sea  on  the  gentle  sand 
Above  the  breaker's  surge;  and  all  because 
She  smiled  too  bravely  and  her  hand  sought  his 
Like  a  poor,  timid  birdling  frightened  home? 

[64] 


WINE  OF  CAN  A 

And  yet  there  is  a  glory  none  can  name, 
A  fragrance  in  the  purple-blooded  grape, 
A  lure  of  sunshine  and  the  kiss  of  health 
Where  wide-cheeked  pitchers  burst  with  ruddy  foam 
And  cob-webbed  jars  are  damp  with  mustiness. 
And  those  that  tread  the  press  with  crimson  feet 
Where  whitened  ankles  flash  with  beaten  gold, 
Laugh  in  the  sun  with  cries  of  sheer  content 
While  songs  of  vintage  echo  from  the  hills 
And  round  the  dripping  vats  the  children  throng. 

Such  joys  are  not  for  nothing;  surely  He 
Who  bent  men's  backs  will  lift  sometimes  the  yoke; 
He  does  not  frown  forever  on  His  world, 
And  when  men  laugh  they  do  not  laugh  alone. 

Then  why  not  drink,  since  wine  is  never  sweeter 
Than  when  the  bubbles  Hush  the  rosy  brim; 
The  pale  bride  droops,  but  fast  the  hour  is  nearing 
When  the  last  faltering  torchlight  flickers  dim, 
And  in  the  bosom  of  the  jar  horizon 
The  waning  crescent  melts  her  silver  rim. 

Then  why  not  laugh,  since  mirth  is  never  fairer 
Than  when  we  feel  presentiment  of  pain; 
The  rocky  pathway  climbs  the  beetling  crag-top 
From  whence  one  sweeps  with  eagle-eye  the  plain: 
Dull  not  that  triumph  with  some  dread  foreboding, 
A  lurking  rainbow  shimmers  through  the  ram. 

[65] 


WINE  OF  CANA 

Then  why  not  love,  since  lips  are  soft  for  pressing, 
Then  why  not  live  when  life  is  new  and  sweet; 
The  hour  is  not  yet  come  when  I  must  clamber 
With  burdened  shoulders  up  the  hooting  street: 
Go,  wash  the  wine  jars  with  untainted  water 
And  lay  the  vintage  at  the  Master's  feet. 


[66] 


MARY 

THE  Master  stood  in  the  narrow  street 

Where  Lazarus  lived  of  yore, 
And  his  eyes  were  turned  to  a  woman's  face 

That  smiled  from  the  low-beamed  door; 
Oh,  the  face  was  tender  and  dear  to  see, 

But  the  Master's  was  troubled  sore. 

The  long  road  climbed  to  the  hills  beyond, 

Dusty  and  white  with  heat; 
Weary  to  death  was  the  Master  then, 

Bleeding  and  worn  his  feet; 
But  there  at  the  threshold  his  heart  stood  still, 

And  he  paused  in  the  narrow  street. 

And  often  I  wonder  what  dreams  he  saw 
In  that  face  at  the  doorway  dim; 

At  her  parted  lips,  and  her  great  dark  eyes, 
Did  his  vision  sudden  swim, 

While  tinier  faces  leaned  from  hers 
To  smile  and  beckon  him? 


[67] 


MARTHA 

MARTHA,  the  sister  of  Mary,  one  day  in  Bethany, 

Pressing  the  curded  cheese  flakes,  paused  quite  thought 
fully, 

Flushed  was  her  brow  at  the  fireplace,  red  were  her 
hands, 

Dark  o'er  her  shoulders  her  hair  fell,  loosely  in  strands. 

White  was  the  floor  underneath,  but  her  garments  were 
soiled ; 

Noon-tide  was  coming  and  Martha  since  morning  had 
toiled ; 

Cool  were  the  grape-arbor  shadows  that  seemed  to 
entreat 

Her  to  come  to  the  green  of  the  vineyard  away  from  the 
heat. 

There,  'neath  the  shade  of  a  fig-tree,  Mary,  her  sister, 

sat. 

Listening  so  breathlessly  silent  she  wondered  thereat, 
Turning  her  delicate  face,  half  a  flush  on  her  cheek, 
Up  to  the  eyes  that  spoke  as  no  others  could  speak. 
Gentle  the  face  that,  above  her,  shone  as  he  smiled, 
Resting  his  hand  on  her  head  as  if  on  a  child; 
Whether  he  trembled  in  touching  the  listening  maid, 
Martha  herself  could  not  tell  us, — they  sat  in  the  shade. 

Then  was  she  troubled,  for  Martha  was  weary,  and  she 
Knew  all  at  once  that  her  garments  were  sweaty  to  see, 
Yet  was  the  dinner  not  ready,  and  much  was  to  do,— 
Martha,  the  sister  of  Mary,  who  loved  Jesus,  too. 

[68] 


MARTHA 

So,  as  she  stood  at  the  threshold,  loudly  she  cried, 
"Jesus,  O  Master,  send  Mary  to  work  at  my  side." 

When  he  rebuked  her  for  asking,  and  smiled  upon  Mary 

anew, 
Haply,  he  knew  not  he  did  it;  but  Martha,  her  sister, 

knew. 


[69] 


THE  LADY  MAGDALEN 

THE  Lady  Magdalen 

Came  to  the  good  Lord  Jesus, 
Her  hair  was  dropping  down 

Sweet  was  she  with  sin; 
There  was  no  one  else  like  her, 

The  Lady  Magdalen. 

Lord  Jesus  paused  to  look, 
The  solemn  good  Lord  Jesus, 

Her  hair  was  dropping  down; 
White  as  his  parchment  book 

Was  the  hand  she  laid  thereon — 
Lord  Jesus  paused  to  look. 

The  Lady  Magdalen 

Bent  low  before  Lord  Jesus, 
Her  hair  was  dropping  down, 

Her  heart  was  light  within — 
There  was  none  more  wise  than  she, 

The  Lady  Magdalen. 


[70] 


ABSOLUTION 

ONCE  I  was  bound  in  slavery 

But  now  my  sins  have  set  me  free. 

No  matter  what  the  songs  have  sung 
It  is  my  sins  have  kept  me  young; 

When  cruelly  my  heart  inclined 

My  own  dead  sins  have  made  me  kind; 

It's  some  are  blind,  and  some  are  wise, 
But  only  sins  have  gentle  eyes; 

'Twas  little  recked  the  brittle  thong 
When  my  sins  woke  to  shake  me  strong; 

And  when  I  face  the  certain  grave 

It  is  my  sins  have  made  me  brave.  .  .  . 

In  Heaven  beside  the  jasper  sea 
The  sins  of  Christ  will  pardon  me. 


PISGAH 

BY  every  ebb  of  the  river-side 
My  heart  to  God  hath  daily  cried; 
By  every  shining  shingle-bar 
I  found  the  pathway  of  a  star; 
By  every  dizzy  mountain-height 
He  touches  me  for  cleaner  sight, 
As  Moses'  face  hath  shined  to  see 
His  intimate  divinity; 
Through  desert  sands  I  stumbling  pass 
To  death's  cool  plot  of  friendly  grass, 
Knowing  each  painful  step  I  trod 
Hath  brought  me  daily  home  to  God. 


[72] 


PRAYER 

THOSE  who  in  their  hearts  have  known 
The  living  God's  eternal  throne, 

Who  have  beheld  the  flaming  sword 
Leap  in  the  flash  of  human  word, 

Who  carry  in  their  deep-set  eyes 
Quiet  immortalities, 

Whose  feet  have  walked  with  scarce  a  sound 
Wonder-haunted  homely  ground, 

For  whom  each  feathered  throat  that  stirs 
Is  one  of  heaven's  choristers, 

Who  look  and  look  and  always  see 
Men's  hearts  beneath  their  mummery, 

Whose  thoughts  are  instant  everywhere.  .  .  . 
What  need  have  such  as  these  for  prayer? 


[731 


IN  HIS  OWN  COUNTRY 

CURSES  upon  him,  men  of  Nazareth, 

For  this  high  sacrilege  of  holy  church 

And  desecration  of  our  synagogue. 

What,  shall  a  wandering  gipsy  blasphemer, 

Dream-visioned  and  a  friend  to  rogues  and  tramps 

Idling  away  the  busy  crowding  days 

When  men  are  working,  set  the  town  on  ears 

And  turn  the  village  upside  down  with  talk 

Of  God's  glad  kingdom  come  again  to  men? 

Have  I  not  known  him,  son  of  a  carpenter, 
Setting  a  shoulder  to  his  father's  trade, 
Grimy  with  sweat  and  straining  with  an  adz 
To  smooth  the  toughened  trunk  of  olive-wood, 
Weary  with  dragging  up  the  rocky  street 
The  beams  of  half  the  houses  of  the  town, 
And  shall  this  slender  staggerer  beneath 
Such  clumsy  burdens  lift  the  whole  round  world 
Up  to  the  dizzy  pinnacles  of  God? 

Have  I  not  seen  him,  racing  o'er  the  hills — 
Hair  in  the  wind,  with  sun-browned  boyish  face, 
Chasing  the  clouds  and  shepherding  the  sky, 
And  shall  this  thoughtless  friend  of  mountain  birds, 
This  idle  playmate  of  the  bees  and  gray 
Sleek-coated  foxes,  rule  Jehovah's  throne 
In  everlasting  glory  down  the  years, 
And  from  the  buttressed  Zion  of  our  faith 
Appal  the  courts  of  Caesar  and  of  Baal 
With  the  dark  shadow  of  a  bloody  sword? 
[74] 


IN  HIS  OWN  COUNTRY 

Messias  when  he  comes  is  king  of  kings, 
But  Jesus  would  be  emperor  of  the  poor; 
Messias  flames  a  whirlwind  of  God's  wrath, 
But  Joseph's  son  proclaims  that  God  is  love. 

"Love,"  does  he  say?    Could  I  but  reach  his  cheek 
He  soon  would  know  the  wage  of  blasphemy 
To  brave  within  God's  holy  synagogue 
The  village  elders  with  his  heresies 
And  artful  mouthings  of  the  prophet's  word 
That  he  it  is  Isaiah  has  foretold 
Shall  loose  the  captives,  give  the  blind  to  see, 
And  lead  the  broken-hearted  into  peace. 

What,  can  he  heal  us,  he  who  thirsty,  drinks, 
And  hungry,  threshes  Sabbath  corn  in  ear, 
Or  faints  when  weary  of  the  summer  sun? 
His  father  needs  him;  can  he  find  no  task 
To  clothe  his  brothers,  stay  his  mother's  hands, 
Or  set  his  sisters  singing  at  their  looms, 
But  he  must  wander  careless,  up  and  down, 
Sleep  under  hedges  with  his  John  and  James, 
Upsetting  half  the  country  with  his  talk 
Of  love  and  brotherhood  and  Father  God? 

Can  he  teach  me,  a  rabbi  of  God's  church, 
New  ways  to  read  the  ancient  prophecies 
Whose  eyes  grow  dim  above  the  yellow  rolls, 
Whose  hands  are  palsied  grasping  at  the  Word; 
[75] 


IN  HIS  OWN  COUNTRY 

And  he  with  his  young  beauty,  breathing  health, 

Lover  of  men  and  children's  comforter, 

Whom  women  follow  as  the  stars  the  moon 

Across  the  windy  heavens,  shall  he  crowd 

Me  out  the  hearts  of  all  our  villagers 

And  pilfer  with  the  turning  of  a  hand 

What  I  have  struggled  all  these  years  to  keep? 

Nay,  that  he  shall  not.    By  my  fathers'  graves 
And  all  the  lineage  of  my  tribe  I  swear 
He  shall  not  do  it.    Old  as  I  am,  I  vow, 
Jehovah  helping,  that  these  withered  hands 
Shall  pluck  his  beard  out,  crown  him  with  wild  thorn, 
Throw  sand  upon  his  scourged  and  bleeding  back, 
And  tear  his  body  limb  from  shining  limb. 
He  will  not  be  so  swift  for  running  then, 
Nor  flash  great  visions  from  his  sunken  eyes. 
Those  hands  that  draw  men  simply  at  a  touch 
Shall  clasp  in  darkness  crumbling  palms  of  death, 
And  night  forever  brood  within  his  brain. 

Millions  of  dreamers  stormed  as  brave  as  he 
The  everlasting  bulwark  of  all  time, 
Setting  their  aery  standards  in  the  breach 
And  climbing  with  their  silly  swords  in  teeth 
Up  the  great  slippery  granite  sides  to  die. 
Millions  of  dreamers,  and  where  are  they  now? 
Jehovah  liveth,  still  his  ministers 
Lift  in  the  Temple  pleading  hands  of  prayer, 


77V  HIS  OWN  COUNTRY 

Emperor  and  Galilean  come  and  go 
And  leave  their  shifting  shadows  in  the  glass, 
While  Aaron's  priesthood  rule  behind  the  Veil 
And  holy  Tabernacle  of  the  Most  High  God. 

The  Temple  stands,  Jehovah  lives,  and  I 
Need  no  instruction  from  a  carpenter. 
My  curse  upon  him  for  his  blasphemy. 
Seize  him  and  stone  him,  men  of  Nazareth. 


[771 


LET  NOT  THEIR  DOUBTS 

LET  not  their  doubts  prevail  at  last  against  me, 

I  who  have  set  to  build  a  hall  of  state; 

They  cannot  know,  with  getting  and  with  spending, 

The  things  to  come  for  which  I  work  and  wait. 

I  hasten  slowly  with  divinest  leisure, 

Lie  in  the  sun  a  long  day  at  a  time; 

With  unconcern  I  watch  the  wave  dissolving 

The  frail  sand-castles  of  my  lonely  rhyme. 

There  are  great  ships  that  shoulder  down  the  channel, 

There  are  white  gulls  that  float  and  dip  and  sail; 

And  I  with  sand  that  slips  between  my  fingers 

Smile  as  they  follow  the  broad-flung,  far  sea-trail. 

What  can  they  find  who  scale  the  gates  of  ocean 
Beyond  the  sea  in  those  enchanted  lands, 
So  warm  and  strange,  dappled,  brown,  and  lovely 
As  this  elusive  swiftness  in  my  hands? 

I  will  arise  when  I  am  drunk  of  sunlight, 
Fostered  of  wind  and  intimate  with  earth, 
Back  to  the  lengthening  shadows  of  the  mountains, 
The  inviolate  snow-fields  of  the  river's  birth. 
There  in  the  mists  that  veil  the  shimmering  aspen, 
There  on  the  granite  pinnacles  of  time 
I  shall  uprear  of  stones  that  make  my  pillow 
The  homely  hospice  of  all  souls  that  climb. 
To  sound  of  music  made  of  many  voices 
Uprose  the  snowy  walls  of  Camelot 
By  Merlin's  magic  .  .  .  my  hearth-fires  shall  kindle 
From  flaming  hearts  that  burned  and  knew  it  not. 
[78] 


LET  NOT  THEIR  DOUBTS 

Let  not  the  fears  of  all  the  valley-dwellers 

Fetter  my  feet  fain  of  the  flint  and  fern: 

I  will  have  done  with  measuring  and  weighing, 

Shielding  no  more  the  candle — let  it  burn! 

It  little  matters  if  the  wick  be  wasting, 

Sooner  or  late  the  thing  to  do  is  done; 

Let  not  their  doubts  prevail  at  last  against  me, 

Stretched  on  the  sand  and  brothering  the  sun. 


[79] 


OUT  OF  THE  DESERT 

Our  of  this  little  and  this  nothingness 

I  will  build  slowly  what  cannot  be  effaced, 

There  shall  come  sound  of  iron  hammers  ringing 

And  groining  arches  like  fingers  interlaced; 

Each  youth  a  king  who  walks  the  common  kingdom, 

Clad  in  the  seamless  robe,  with  lifted  head ; 

Each  girl  a  queen,  love's  roses  in  her  bosom, 

Walking  beside  him  with  an  equal  tread. 

I  will  set  song  upon  the  lips  of  singers 

Who  slumber  still  uncalled  from  out  the  dust, 

I  will  light  fires  upon  unnumbered  altars, 

Love  shall  be  honest,  justice  shall  be  just. 

I  have  not  cried  alone  within  the  desert, 

Ye  go  not  out  to  find  a  broken  reed; 

I  have  clasped  Him  who  walks  the  pillared  darkness, 

I  have  not  wrestled  with  Him  feeble-kneed. 

About  my  loins  I  gird  a  sword  that  flashes 

With  lightnings  hidden  in  the  marching  cloud; 

I  break  above  your  heads  the  awful  tablets, 

And  fling  the  fragments  to  the  wheeling  crowd. 

Out  of  such  sowing  shall  come  mighty  reaping, 

Hearts  are  the  fields,  and  songs  the  seed  I  sow: 

Ye  shall  not  know  until  the  time  of  reaping 

What  hand  upheld  me,  but  I  know,  I  know! 


[80] 


I  NOW,  WALT  WHITMAN 

I  NOW,  Walt  Whitman, 

In  the  twenty-fifth  year  of  my  wandering  with  invisible 

footstep 

Raising  no  dust  in  the  green  paths  of  heaven, 
More  alive  now  than  I  was  in  Camden,  more  so  even 

than  in  Manhattan, 
Come  from  knitting  with  gossamer  windings  the  hearts 

of  many  who  love  me, 

Finding  me  uninvited  an  intruder  into  their  chambers 
Never  again  to  be  banished — 
I  alive  now,  happy,  rejoicing  in  manhood  and  in  the 

increasing  manliness  and  tenderness  of  lovers, 
Salute  you,  who  thought  I  could  lie  still  and  not  re 
member 

The  flesh  and  the  body,  the  roughs  as  well  as  the  gentle, 
(As  if  when  a  man  has  written  a  book,  he  will  never 

start  in  on  another, 
And  as  if  I  had  not  spoken  the  truth  when  I  told  them 

I  should  not  lie  still  in  my  coffin, 
But  should  be  continually  out  on  the  open  road). 

I  have  published  myself  many  times  since  I  left  the  old 
rocker, 

And  many  have  thought  that  what  they  had  written  had 
something  within  it, 

But  few  have  acknowledged  whose  hand  has  been  laid  on 
their  shoulder. 

Here  in  the  West,  born  of  the  sun  and  the  prairie, 

Like  myself  in  many  things,  tenderness,  courage,  devo 
tion,  knowing  some  things  that  I  knew  not, 
[81] 


/  NOW,  WALT  WHITMAN 

Yet  lacking  in  wisdom — humble,  though,  and  yielding 

with  perfect  faith  to  my  guidance, 
(He  himself  could  not  say  these  things,  but  I  can  say 

them), 
He  I  have  chosen  is  setting  in  words  not  so  resistless  as 

mine  were, 
Still  with  a  witness  of  earnest  about  them 

Come,  now,  ye  who  have  sworn  by  my  pages,  making 
out  of  my  frankness  a  cult  that  I  never  intended, 

Fearing  the  open,  lurking  in  pestilent  cities,  and  hectic 
with  milling  together, 

In  what  was  purest  and  manliest  in  me  finding  excuse 
for  your  ordure, 

With  delicate  fingers  picking  my  body  to  pieces, 

Have  done,  I  disown  you! 

My  most  undeniable  message. 

The  perfect  body  singing  its  ample  justification, 
The  open-handed  candor  of  the  dawn  seen  through  the 

interlacing  pine-trees: 
I  take  the  road,  but  leave  my  staff  behind. 


[82] 


THE  LOOM 

TWENTY-THREE  and  twenty-seven, 
Lots  of  time  to  get  to  Heaven, 
Though  we  camp  and  watch  for  dawn 
Beside  the  road  we  travel  on; 
Time  to  live  and  time  for  love, 
Time  enough  for  time  to  prove 
All  the  healing  in  the  hem 
Woven  for  Jerusalem. 


[83] 


THE  MYSTIC 

THERE  is  a  power  you  know  not  of, 
Except  you  know  as  I  have  known 
How  one  can  give  his  all  to  love 
And  find  his  all  in  love  alone. 


[84] 


PETER,  THE  ROCK 

THE  centuries  passed.  ...  I  said,  "I  shall  not  find  him: 
He  has  been  dead  for  twenty  hundred  years. 
Teter,'  I  called  him  by  the  lonely  waters, 
Teter,  the  Rock,'  whose  sword  struck  off  men's  ears." 

.  .  .  And  then  I  saw  you,  steady-eyed  forever, 
With  strong  arms  still,  firm  lips,  and  ready  smile; 
I  called  you  to  me.    You  flamed  in  broken  wonder, 
Finding  I  had  been  with  you  all  the  while. 


[85] 


ASSURANCE 

I  WELL  go  with  you  step  by  step 

With  even  stride, 
Up  a  never-ending  way 

With  One  beside. 

What  I  have  seen,  you  shall  see, — 

It  is  not  much, — 
And  yet  one  does  not  always  sense 

God's  touch. 

You  are  a  prayer  your  parents  prayed, 

And  I  prayed  too; 
God  has  been  good,  and  given  us 

You. 

You  shall  become  a  fisher,  and  seine  men, 

Making  God  complete, 
And  One  we  love  will  stand  upon  the  shore 

With  bare  feet. 

Jesus,  I  have  lived  into  a  life 

Your  love, — 
Though  darkness  smite  me,  have  I  something  lef: 

To  think  of. 

He  shall  remember  and  shall  not  forget, 

God  keep  him  now, 
My  living  prayer  is  strong,  for  Christ  has  touched 

His  brow. 

[86] 


ASSURANCE 

We  walk  together  when  we  are  apart; 

Our  eyes  have  met, 
And  what  we  saw,  there  is  no  man  shall  know, 

Nor  we  forget. 


[87] 


ACCEPTANCE 

I  CANNOT  think  nor  reason, 
I  only  know  he  came 
With  hands  and  feet  of  healing 
And  wild  heart  all  aflame, 

With  eyes  that  dimmed  and  softened 
At  all  the  things  he  saw; 
And  in  his  pillared  singing 
I  read  the  marching  Law. 

I  only  know  he  loves  me, 
Enfolds  and  understands, — 
And  oh,  his  heart  that  holds  me, 
And  oh,  his  certain  hands! 


[88] 


THE  WAY 

Is  life  less  worth  the  living 
Now  you  have  found  the  way 
Of  laughing  and  forgiving 
And  living  out  the  day? 

Suppose  Night  come  the  faster 
And  lamps  grow  sudden  dim; 
Love,  and  face  disaster 
With  laughter,  God,  and  Him. 

Matthew,  Mark,  and  Peter, 
Lazarus  and  John, 
Knew  a  thing  completer 
Than  we  have  looked  upon. 

Yet,  we  could  mold  and  fashion, 
Could  we  love  as  they, 
And  sense  God's  perfect  passion 
With  fire  inform  our  clay. 

Knock  and  ye  shall  enter, 
Seek  and  ye  shall  find; 
Let  Earth  forsake  her  center, 
But  my  sure  words  shall  bind. 


[89] 


FOR  ONE  WHO  GOES 

I  DO  not  wish  that  you  should  think, 
Touched  with  this  new  surprise, 

I  am  not  made  as  others  are, 
Or  see  with  fresher  eyes. 

The  dark  things  that  to  you  are  dark 

To  me  are  just  as  dim; 
The  Galilean  only  knows 

My  ageless  trust  in  him. 

And  if  some  strange  things  come  to  pass 

Before  you  knew  not  of, 
It  is  because  my  heart  is  steeled 

In  his  remembered  love. 

If  this  be  good  that  we  have  found, 

It  cannot  pass  away; 
And  partings  cannot  come  between, 

Though  you  go  and  I  stay. 

For  you  may  take  the  mountain  trail 

And  I  may  take  the  plain; 
But  our  two  roads,  where'er  they  go, 

Will  cross  some  day  again. 

Time  cannot  wither,  custom  stale, 

Nor  even  death  make  end, 
To  this  good  thing  that  we  have  found 

Who  call  each  other  friend. 

[90] 


MIZPAH 

"The   Lord   watch   between   me   and   thee   when   we   are 
absent  one  from  another." — Gen.  31 :  49. 

IF  I  should  leave  you,  friend,  and  go  beyond 
The  touch  of  hands,  the  strength  of  steady  eyes, 
The  perfect  understanding  of  your  face, 
I  go  in  body  but  go  not  myself. 

For  in  the  hour  of  parting  we  shall  turn 
Back  to  the  gentle  Christ  who  went  away 
From  all  he  loved,  women  and  men  and  babes, 
And  firm  caressing  hands  and  tender  lips. 

He  knew  by  living  what  we,  too,  must  learn 
Close  in  his  arms  who  never  yet  has  died, 
Whose  love  outlives  his  beautiful  cold  limbs, 
And  the  dim  closing  of  his  weary  eyes. 

I  have  not  always  known  that  Christ  still  walks 
Beside  us  daily  though  we  do  not  see, 
I  did  not  know  that  when  men  dare  to  love 
The  living  Jesus  has  an  arm  round  each. 

I  do  not  understand,  and  yet  I  know 
The  arms  of  Jesus  have  encircled  me, 
And  I  have  felt  his  lips  upon  my  own 
And  seen  his  eyes'  immortal  tenderness. 

Not  to  each  other  but  to  him  keep  close, 
Each  to  his  labor  where  his  task  is  set, 
And  He  who  brought  the  two  of  us  together 
Will  watch  between  us  though  our  roads  diverge. 


MIZPAH 


A  little  while, — what  reckon  we  the  years 
Who  have  set  out  upon  an  endless  way? 
We  shall  yet  walk  together,  you  and  I, 
Shoulder  to  shoulder  underneath  the  stars. 


[92] 


SOLOMON 

I  SAY  that  those  who  have  forgot  the  feel 
Of  the  good  God's  dirt  beneath  a  grimy  heel, 
Whose  hands  are  heavy  with  a  signet  ring, 
Cannot  teach  me  the  worth  of  anything. 

I  say  that  those  who  read  within  a  book 
May  look  quite  wise,  but  that  is  all  they  look; 
Perhaps  some  clown  may  find  a  better  school 
Than  those  who  sit  the  day  through  on  a  stool. 

And  if  this  be  the  way  that  wise  men  go, 
Why,  then,  the  fool  knows  all  the  wise  men  know; 
Nay,  something  more  the  wise  men  never  guessed — 
Why,  then,  the  wise  man  is  a  fool  at  best. 

I  say  the  clown  in  being  a  good  fool 

Is  wise  as  he  who  keeps  the  village  school, 

And  a  child  who  knows  one-half  the  throstle  sings 

Is  sager  than  Solomon,  king  of  kings. 


[931 


UNPARADISED 

MOSES,  Moses,  where  thou  art 
On  a  lonely  hill, 

Hast  thou  heard  the  shawms  of  God 
Have  their  holy  will? 

David,  David,  leaping  down 
Low  before  the  Ark, 
Hast  thou  heard  young  Solomon 
Where  thou  liest  stark? 

Adam,  Adam,  driven  out 
To  a  desert  place, 
Go  in  peace  and  dig  thy  grave: 
Thou  hast  seen  God's  face. 


[94] 


FOR  A  MOUNTAIN  HOSTELRY 

IN  this  lifted  quiet  place 

I  have  learned  anew  God's  grace, 

Grace  of  mountain-peak  and  snow, 

And  the  lonely  lake  below, 

Spruce  and  aspen's  gentleness, 

And  the  ruddy  sun's  caress, 

Here  where  stars  are  never  far 

But  intimate  as  lovers  are — 

Happy  he  whose  trail  ends 

By  the  hearth-fires  of  such  friends. 

There  is  more  than  meets  the  eye 
In  this  gracious  hostelry: 
There  is  something  man  can  find 
Only  in  the  quiet  mind, 
Only  in  the  faith  that  tells 
More  than  lettered  rubric  spells, 
Only  in  the  heart  that  knows 
More  than  blazing  altar  shows, — •, 
In  the  wilderness  have  trod 
Feet  that  find  their  way  to  God. 


Prairie,  mountain-peak,  and  sea 
Pentecostal  are  to  me; 
And  in  faces  have  I  seen 
Eyes  that  knew  the  Nazarene 
When  He  passed  them  footing  slowly 
The  hushed  way  to  the  mountain  holy: 
[95] 


FOR  A  MOUNTAIN  HOSTELRY 

John  from  Patmos  in  the  sun 
Saw  God's  love-anointed  one, — 
Blest  be  he  whose  ears  have  heard 
Daily  that  unuttered  Word. 


[96] 


THE  GARDENER 

OUT  of  an  old-world  passion 

I  shape  you  a  new-world  song, 

And  deft  are  the  hands  that  fashion 

Though  dark  with  an  ancient  wrong: 

Yet  God  is  abroad  in  his  garden 

And  he  knows  where  the  stains  belong. 

He  walks  in  his  garden  slowly 
Like  a  great  man  at  his  ease; 
Hushed  is  the  air  and  holy 
In  awe  of  his  reveries, 
For  he  is  the  ancient  warden 
Who  guardeth  memories. 

I  saw  Him  in  his  garden, 
I  stared  at*  him  over  the  wall, 
The  keeper  of  Death  and  Pardon 
To  bind  and  loose  us  all, — 
He  was  only  an  old  man  walking, 
Gentle  and  gray  and  tall. 


[97] 


CREEDS 

How  pitiful  are  little  folk — 

They  are  so  very  small 

They  look  at  stars,  and  think  they  are 

Denominational. 


[98] 


AN  EPITAPH  FOR  THE  DEVIL 

THE  Devil  is  dead  and  laid  in  his  shroud: 

Sprinkle  him  with  holy  water, — 

Now  he  knoweth  reconciliation. 

Before  he  died  he  was  the  cause  of  not  a  little 

trouble: 

Now  he  is  quieter  than  December  snow-flakes. 
Think  kindly  of  him,  for  he  did  no  evil 
He  was  ashamed  of; 
And  he  was  at  least  always  honest  with  God. 


\ 


PRAYER  TO  THE  DEVIL 

DEAR  Devil,  I  would  pray  to  thee  from  out  an  earnest 

heart, 
The  lone  thing  in  the  universe  who  dare  be  what  thou 

art, 
Look  up  from  out  the  torment  of  thy  burning  lakes  of 

pain, 
And  pity  in  thy  steadfastness  us  men  who  fawn  and 

feign; 

For  in  our  cowardice  we  dare  seem  neither  good  nor  ill, 
And,  lagging  in  the  vale,  pretend  to  climb  toward  the 

hill, 
Half-men  who  hug  within  our  breasts  each  nasty  little 

sin, 
Like  rotten  fruit  still  fair  without,  but  nameless  foul 

within. 


[100] 


NONCHALANCE 

WHY  is  it  that  I  cannot  fear 

When  others  are  afraid, 
But  in  the  lightning's  center  I 

Walk  barefoot,  undismayed? 

Though  frail  the  walls  of  flesh  that  hold 

They  are  as  granite  too, 
Thin-carven  as  a  pane  of  stone 

For  light  to  filter  through. 

When  other  careful-minded  men 

Seek  prudent  shelter,  I 
With  nonchalance  of  thunder-doom 

Assail  the  splendid  sky, 

As  if  I  knew  how  far  could  reach 

The  dreadful  hand  of  God, 
And  just  escaped  his  fingers  with 

A  not  unhostile  nod. 


[101] 


THE  MONEY-CHANGERS 

COULD  I  but  see  you,  Comrade,  as  that  day 
You  snatched  the  whip-cord  in  a  wrathful  hand 
And  drove  with  swift  flail  of  your  stern  command 
The  money-changers  from  their  shame  away, 
Beyond  the  Temple  steps  to  cheat  and  pray, 
Man-furious  in  splendid  anger  stand 
Like  pillared  flame  by  surge  of  tempest  fanned, 
I  would  not  ask  you  one  hot  blow  to  stay. 
Long  have  they  bartered  in  your  tenderness, 
The  smirking  Temple-rogues  who  cheat  us  now; 
Smite  with  your  lash  that  beats  like  jagged  hail; 
Pity  them  not,  for  they  were  pitiless; 
Strike  in  white  anger,  glad  avenger,  now, 
And  in  your  hand  I  shall  become  the  flail. 


[102] 


OLIVE-WOOD 

THE  sky  at  night  is  not  too  large — 

In  Olivet  I  found  it — 
I  never  knew  how  small  the  world  was 

Till  I  put  my  arms  around  it. 


Happiness  like  sand 

Through  my  fingers  slips: 
I  have  caught  a  grain  or  two 

On  my  finger-tips. 


When  I  am  here  I  am  not  there — 

How  very  queer  it  seems 
That  Here,  and  There,  and  Everywhere 

Are  different  kinds  of  dreams. 


JOHN 

JOHN,  my  beloved,  come  with  me  apart 
In  this  dim  garden  for  a  little  space. 
I  cannot  rest  me  though  the  others  sleep; 
There  is  a  time  to  wake  them,  but  not  now. 

Is  it  not  good  to  climb  this  hill  to-night 
After  the  glad  hosannas  in  the  streets, 
The  crowding  faces,  life  and  men  and  love, 
Here  on  the  slope  of  the  eternal  stars 
To  watch  the  lights  that  shine  through  Kedron's  Vale 
And  'neath  the  olives  walk  alone  with  God? 

Tis  not  the  first  time  that  we  two  have  walked 
Shoulder  to  shoulder  underneath  the  stars; 
Nor  yet  the  last,  John,  though  to-morrow's  sun 
Should  dawn  upon  you,  and  on  you  alone. 

Nay,  my  good  brother,  loose  your  fingers'  grip. 
You  could  not  keep  me  if  I  willed  to  go: 
Your  heart  enfolds  me,  not  your  fearful  arm — 
The  lights  shine  dearer  through  the  dusky  vale, 
And  with  their  coming,  John,  we  say  good-by. 

We  say  good-by,  for  every  road  must  end, 
All  pleasant  journeys  underneath  the  sun; 
Claspt  hands  are  severed,  hungry  lips  must  part, 
The  long  night  comes  at  close  of  every  day, 
And  men  must  slumber  when  their  work  is  done. 

[104] 


JOHN 


Nay,  it  is  better, — light  is  not  light  alone; 
Were  there  no  shadows,  even  suns  were  blind; 
Only  by  parting  do  men  meet  again. 

And  we  have  met,  John,  met  in  a  holy  land 
Alone  with  God  in  his  great  silences 
Where  never  men  have  ventured — you  and  I. 
And  we  have  looked  beyond  the  gates  of  heaven, 
Beyond  the  stars,  beyond  the  flaming  sun, 
Beyond  all  time,  and  known  that  God  is  love. 

Was  it  not  worth  it,  just  to  dare  to  be 
One's  simple  self,  to  think,  to  love,  to  do, 
And  not  to  be  ashamed?    To  live  one  life 
Fearless  and  pure  and  strong,  true  to  one's  self, 
Though  the  false  world  were  full  of  lies  and  hate, 
Where  blind  men  lead  each  other  through  the  dark, 
Too  weak  to  sin,  ashamed  of  what  is  good, 
Unable  to  do  evil,  thinking  it. 

But  we  have  dared.    David  and  Jonathan 
Drank  no  divinelier  in  courts  of  Saul 
Than  we  together  in  Gethsemane. 
And  though  to-night  I  drain  the  cup  of  death 
Down  to  the  stinging  dregs  of  Judas'  kiss, 
The  wine  of  love  lies  sweeter  on  my  lips — 
I  see  the  lanterns  gleaming.    Kiss  me,  John. 


[105] 


GETHSEMANE 

COMRADE,  my  friend,  when  tramp  of  Romans  made, 
Through  the  hushed  silence  of  Gethsemane, 
Thy  soul  to  waver  if  'twere  best  for  thee, 
Strongly  to  meet  with  Judas,  undismayed, 
And  drain  the  poisoned  chalice  of  his  lips, 
That  killed  thee,  or  more  prudent,  flee 
Far  to  some  desert  cave  of  Galilee, 
Where  the  hill-fed  brook  that  scarcely  slips 
From  rock  to  little  pool  is  kinder  far 
To  the  parched  water-grass  that  shyly  dips 
Within  the  tide  its  dainty  fronded  tips 
Than,  in  the  world  of  men,  the  gentlest  are — 
If  thou  hadst  known,  within  the  olive  shade, 
How  men  have  scorned  thee,  since,  wouldst  thou  have 
stayed? 

Jesus,  dear  friend,  who  loved  so  gentle- wise 
That  children  lifted  up  to  thy  thin  cheek 
Their  ineffectual  fingers — as  we  seek 
Through  the  long  years  the  glory  of  thy  eyes, 
And  find  it  not, — Jesus,  who  loved  so  well 
That  strong  men  followed  when  they  heard  thee  speak, 
Leaving  their  sagging  nets  beside  the  bleak 
Wild  sea;  for  whom,  unmarked,  no  fledgling  fell 
From  out  the  nest,  or  lily  bloomed  in  vain; 
Who  heard  thrush  music  like  a  silver  bell 
Rise  from  the  road-side  hedge,  antiphonal, 
And  stayed  the  thoughtless  hand  that  would  have  slain — 
If  thou  hadst  known  how  blind  men  are  and  dumb 
To  all  thy  pity,  wouldst  thou,  then,  have  come? 

[106] 


GETHSEMANE 

If  thou  hadst  known,  dear  Jesus,  that  for  thee 
Men  should  lift  hands  against  their  brothers,  yea, 
Should  stain  those  hands  with  scarlet,  ere  they  pray 
At  perfumed  altars,  chanting  blasphemy; 
Couldst  thou  have  seen  men  build  a  temple  high 
O'er  mouldering  corpses  that  with  foul  decay 
Pollute  the  present  with  dead  Yesterday, 
Where  money-changers  cheat  and  rascals  buy 
Their  tickets  into  Heaven,  bargaining; 
Couldst  thou  have  heard  lip-mumblers  craftily 
Lure  through  that  vast  and  unsubstantial  lie 
Men's  souls  to  self-extinction,  hungering — 
Wouldst  thou  not,  rather,  from  Gethsemane 
Have  passed  into  the  darkness  quietly? 


Hark!    Already  up  the  breathless  side 
Of  that  lone  summit  sound  the  stealthy  feet; 
The  torches  flicker;  shielding  shadows  meet 
Above  thee  still, — oh,  do  not  now  abide! 
Why  shouldst  thou  fling  thy  glorious  purpose  there 
For  knaves  to  mangle?     Moments  now  will  cheat 
Them  forever;   the  fields  of  life  are  sweet 
With  unaccomplished  fragrance,  oh,  so  fair! 
— Forgive  me,  Jesus,  if  too  yearningly 
I  seek  to  touch  thy  garment's  hem  in  prayer 
Across  the  ages. — Hadst  thou  been  aware 
How,  in  the  world-wide  Garden  of  Gethsemane, 
Men  still  with  kissing  sell  thee,  crucified 
In  their  own  bosoms,  wouldst  thou,  then,  have  died? 

[107] 


GETHSEMANE 

— I  will  not  question.    Jesus,  thou  didst  drink 
Deep  of  the  cypress  cup,  and  thou  didst  know 
How  strangely  sweet  the  dregs  are,  sinking  low; 
When  that  Which  Is  has  melted  link  by  link, 
And  the  pale  petals  of  What  Is  To  Be 
Tremble  in  blooming,  through  the  darkness,  so 
One  wonders  if  the  whiteness  stirs,  or  no; 
Then  morning  dawns,  and,  unexpectedly, 
The  Gardener  finds  that  night  has  blown  a  rose! 
Night  holds  us  now  bewildered,  and  we  see 
Dim  shadow-shapes  that  shroud  mysteriously 
The  commonest  shrub  that  in  the  Garden  grows; 
Morning  will  come;  nor  shall  I,  craven,  shrink 
Before  the  cup  that  thou,  dear  Lord,  didst  drink. 


[108] 


FAITH 

THE  few  who  love  are  stronger  far 
Than  all  the  rest  who  hate: 
So,  robed  in  flame,  I  do  my  work, 
Accept  my  cross,  and  wait. 


[109] 


GOLGOTHA 

AND  has  it  come  to  this?    How  strange  it  seems 
That  after  all  the  shouting  so  it  ends. 
A  skull-strewn  hill,  the  great  sky  overhead, 
All  round  about  the  throngs  of  little  men, 
And  over  there  Jerusalem — Jerusalem — 
Set  like  a  queen  upon  a  burnished  throne, 
With  one  white  jewel  in  her  perfumed  breast, 
The  Temple,  where  men's  prayers  go  up  to  God 
Even  now  as  on  the  Hill  of  Death  I  wait 
To  stretch  my  weary  arms  upon  their  cross. 


(One  moment  now  to  take  my  leave  of  life? 
I  thank  thee,  comrade,  for  thy  gentleness. 
The  Roman  soldiers  have  been  kind  to-day, 
Their  eyes  are  milder  than  their  wont  to  be; 
And  as  I  stumbled  up  the  rocky  path 
I  felt  one  lift  me  as  I  fell  to  earth. 
His  hand  was  warm  and  lingered  over  mine 
An  instant  as  he  raised  me, — was  it  thou? 
I  knew  it  from  the  gruffness  of  thy  voice: 
Man's  love  for  man  is  something,  after  all.) 


"To  take  my  leave  of  life."    Dimly  I  see 
The  hill-side  black  with  peoples,  hear  a  sound, 
Hoarse  as  the  cry  of  breakers  in  a  storm 
When  winds  are  angry  with  the  fisher-craft, 
Thunder  upon  me.    Can  they  hate  me  so? 
[no] 


GOLGOTHA 

But  now  they  fade  from  vision,  and  I  seem 
To  ride  once  more  along  the  palm-strewn  street 
Where  little  children  press  to  touch  my  knee 
And  men  and  women  arch  my  way  with  song, 
Strong  men  with  muscled  bodies  warm  with  life, 
And  women  tender-eyed  and  rich  in  love; 
That  was  my  day  of  triumph,  life  and  love. 

And  now  I  leave  them,  all  the  golden  days 
Of  hands  that  touch  and  eyes  that  answer  mine, 
The  quiet  evenings,  and  the  hush  of  dawn, 
The  fields  that  faint  with  lilies,  street  and  hedge, 
Grim  Galilean  caverns,  and  the  water  cress 
Fringing  the  hill-stream,  dusty  winding  roads, 
The  waving  wheat-fields,  and  the  arbor  shade, 
Thrill  of  warm  bodies  sleeping  by  my  side, 
And  arms  of  comrades  thrown  across  my  breast 
In  the  dim  mornings  when  the  dew  is  chill 
And  the  first  sparrow  twitters  to  his  mate 
Beneath  the  vineyard  trellis  where  they  nest. 

(John,  my  beloved,  thou  at  least  art  true, 
More  than  a  brother,  even  though  we  part; 
Stand  thou  before  me,  when  they  raise  me  up, 
And  I  shall  dream  that  thy  dear  head  still  lies 
Upon  my  bosom,  and  forget  the  pain.) 

Strange  that  I  fear  no  evil,  now  that  Death 
Draws  nigh  to  fold  me  in  his  long  embrace, 
[in] 


GOLGOTHA 

But  rather  do  I  feel  a  wondrous  calm 
As  if  the  cooling  sheets  already  wrapped 
In  all  the  perfumed  languor  of  the  grave 
This  fevered  body, — fold  me  surely,  Death. 

I  would  not  come  again  though  life  be  sweet 
And  fragrant  with  the  lure  of  Sharon's  rose. 
Tis  something  to  have  left  upon  their  stems 
Some  buds  unopened,  to  have  lived  one  life 
Rich  with  the  unperfected  beauty  of  great  love, 
And  passed  yet  potent  to  what  after  comes, 
Leaving  still  undeciphered  half  the  truth, 
Till  on  Golgotha's  of  their  homely  tasks, 
Beset  with  trivial  thorns  from  day  to  day, 
And  sneered  by  scoffers  or  unnoticed  quite, 
Men  learn  to  shoulder  bravely  each  his  load 
And  come  to  know,  as  I  do,  what  is  love. 

(Yes,  I  am  ready.    Nay,  I  know,  my  friend, 
Thou  must  obey  when  Pilate  gives  command; 
God's  will  be  done:  for  thou  hast  wife  and  child, 
And  men  just  live  for  others, — as  I  die.) 


THE  ONE 

WHEN  He  went  out  from  Jordan 
To  walk  in  Galilee, 
He  went  with  those  who  loved  him, 
The  Twelve,  and  then  the  Three. 

When  He  was  in  the  Garden 
Before  the  cup  was  done, 
He  found  the  Three  were  sleeping 
And  called  aside  the  One. 

And  when  'twas  almost  finished, 
Down  from  the  bloody  Tree 
He  found  the  One  beside  him 
And  His  heart  leapt  to  see 

The  One,  the  more  than  brother, 
Who  on  His  heart  had  lain, — 
Knew  only  that  he  loved  Him, 
And  felt  no  more  His  pain. 


t«3l 


THEY  HAVE  NOT  LOWERED  HIM 

STRONG  in  defeat,  because  you  dared  to  say 
What  others  dream  of  only  to  forget, 
Glorious  failure, — upon  Golgotha  yet 
You  hang,  with  wan-blanched  cheek  and  gray 
Drawn  lips  that  moan,  "Forgive  them;  they 
Know  not  the  thing  they  do."    The  centuries  fleet, 
But  still  the  blunderers  transfix  thy  feet, 
And  press  the  thorn  yet  deeper  as  they  pray. 

Stranger  than  Lazarus  who  thrilled  to  hear 
Through  the  deep,  death-like  trance  thy  tenderness, 
Or  blind  men  clearer-eyed  than  Pharisees, 

Or  melodies  that  haunt  a  deafened  ear.  .  .  . 
That  worshipers  in  smug  forgetfulness 
Leave  thee  to  hang  and  mock  thee  from  their  knees! 


t"4] 


THE  BUILDER:  I 

SMOOTHING  a  cypress  beam 
With  a  scarred  hand 

I  saw  a  carpenter 
In  a  far  land. 

Down  past  the  flat  roofs 
Poured  the  white  sun; 

But  still  he  bent  his  back, 
The  patient  one. 

And  I  paused  surprised 
In  that  queer  place 

To  find  an  old  man 
With  a  haunting  face. 

"Who  art  thou,  carpenter, 
Of  the  bowed  head; 

And  what  buildest  thou?" 
"Heaven,"  he  said. 


[US] 


THE  BUILDER:  II 

You  think  it  strange  that  I,  an  aging  man, 
Here  in  this  lonely  village  hew  my  beams 
And  set  the  flat-roofed  houses  straight  and  true, 
Yet  ever  with  a  something  in  my  face 
That  makes  you  love  me,  even  though  I'm  old; 
How  should  an  old  man  teach  a  boy  to  love? 

Aye,  lad,  we'll  rest,  and  clear  a  little  space 
Here  in  the  shavings  underneath  the  tree — 
How  softly  that  green  vine  has  faced  the  sun, 
The  clusters  ripen,  there's  a  sparrow's  nest, 
I  think  the  lilies  never  were  so  fair. 
The  goats  are  driven  through  the  narrow  streets, 
The  weary  oxen  leave  the  threshing-floor, 
And  there's  the  new  moon  like  a  silver  sail. 

Oh,  I  have  sailed  upon  a  magic  sea, 
And  heard  the  winds  that  blow  from  the  new  moon 
Across  the  waters  move  with  wondering — 

Boy,  you  have  served  me;  if  you  were  my  son 
I  do  not  think  you  could  be  tenderer. 
And  I  have  marked  the  question  in  your  face 
Many  long  days  you  never  spoke  at  all 
But  set  a  stouter  shoulder  to  the  beam 
Because  I  stumbled  lifting  it  in  place, 
Feeling  the  old  wound  in  my  side  afresh. 
I  was  as  strong  within  my  father's  house — 
He  was  a  carpenter — I  had  my  trade  of  him. 
Remembrance  of  him  and  of  my  mother's  face 
Crowds  round  my  heart:  to-night  you  shall  be  told. 
[116] 


THE  BUILDER:  II 

There  was  a  young  man,  such  as  you  are  now, 

Filled  with  great  wonder  at  the  winds  and  hills, 

Sturdy  of  back,  laughing,  and  fleet  of  foot, 

Yet  hiding  a  great  yearning  in  his  heart 

For  the  good  touch  of  women  and  of  friends. 

Lettered  he  was  only  in  humble  ways, 

Yet  knew  the  ancient  language  of  his  race 

And  pored  above  the  parchments  lovingly 

Upon  the  house-top  near  the  twilight  time, 

Reading  of  Abram  in  the  land  of  Ur, 

Of  Moses  in  the  courts  of  Pharaoh, 

Of  Samuel  and  the  voice  that  called 

And  how  he  late  anointed  Jesse's  son, 

Of  how  Saul  loved  the  young  lad  in  his  heart, 

And  of  the  arrows  shot  by  Jonathan. 

One  day  into  the  village  came  a  Greek, 
Hungry  and  fleeing,  whom  the  carpenter 
Took  to  his  house  because  he  once  had  fled 
Into  another  country  years  before; 
And  when  the  fugitive  prepared  to  go 
He  took  from  his  own  breast  a  parchment  roll 
And  gave  it  to  the  young  lad  of  the  home, 
Saying,  "My  friend,  I  leave  thee  living  bread 
For  those  that  hunger  dumbly  after  Truth. 
There  was  a  good  man  whom  they  judged  to  death 
Because  men  loved  him  for  the  word  he  spoke, 
Saying  he  had  no  fear  but  to  do  wrong, 
No  aim  in  living  but  to  speak  true. 
He  drank  the  hemlock,  but  his  words  are  here 
["7] 


THE  BUILDER:  II 

Written  in  love  by  one  who  loved  him  much; 
Behold,  I  plant  truth  like  a  mustard  seed 
Within  thy  heart,  to  cover  all  the  earth. 
Take  it  and  use  it  as  the  word  of  God." 

So  saying  went  the  wanderer  from  the  town, 
But  the  young  man  remembered  all  he  spoke, 
And  knew  the  parchment  was  from  Sinai. 

Then  came  upon  him  the  awful  immanence 
Of  understanding  out  of  visionings, 
And  he  was  caught  up  in  a  fiery  cloud 
Of  all  the  dead  undying  prophecies 
That  stirred  the  hearts  of  those  whom  men  have  slain 
And  after  worshiped,  knowing  them  from  God. 
And  as  he  went  about  the  village  street 
He  saw  new  meanings  in  the  children's  play, 
The  shepherd's  labors,  and  the  house-wife's  toil, 
And  love  of  men  for  those  who  yield  them  peace. 
He  laughed  among  them,  wrestled  ruddily 
With  his  hale  comrades,  helped  the  vintner  tread, 
Rejoicing  with  his  father  in  snug  beams 
And  well  hewn  rafters;  but  his  mother  knew 
Upon  the  Sabbath  how  he  sought  the  hills 
And  made  the  barren  slopes  his  synagogue. 

Then  was  his  vision  shattered  by  a  voice 
That  cried  upon  him  in  the  wilderness, 
Saying,  "God's  Kingdom  is  near  at  hand"; 
And  he  went  out  among  the  country  folk 
[118] 


THE  BUILDER:  II 

Speaking  the  truth  of  God's  love  unto  man, 
And  how  His  Kingdom  was  within  the  heart, 
And  man  should  love  his  brother,  knowing  him 
His  kingly  comrade  and  good  comforter. 

Then  did  the  elders  murmur  at  his  speech, 
Saying  such  words  were  highly  dangerous, 
And  he  should  die — so  he  was  judged  to  death. 

But  I  have  had  a  vision  in  my  time 
As  here  in  this  lone  village  I  have  bent 
Through  forty  years,  and  now  you  at  my  side — 
I  think  it  set  God's  peace  upon  my  face — 
And  this  I  tell  you,  now  that  night  draws  near, 
And  you  shall  be  a  witness  of  the  dream. 

I  thought  one  hung  upon  a  cross  all  day 
Upon  a  hill  and  faced  the  blazing  sun 
And  heard  the  thunder  of  the  waves  of  hate, 
Yet  only  saw  his  mother's  stricken  face, 
Three  mourning  women,  and  one  fearless  friend. 
Then  all  was  darkness,  and  he  cried  aloud, 
"My  God,  why  hast  thou  left  me,  even  Thou!" 
Then  came  forgetfulness  and  gracious  peace. 

I  thought  in  time  the  darkness  lifted  up 
And  pain  came  back  into  his  battered  hands 
And  a  great  fire  burned  deep  within  his  side; 
Then  a  low  voice  that  whispered  in  a  tomb: 


THE  BUILDER:  II 

"Father,  my  God,  thou  knowest  of  our  love 
And  now  I  heard  him  in  the  utter  dark 
Calling  me  forth  into  the  green  of  day. 
Thou  knowest  all  the  splendor  of  that  cry 
That  shattered  to  me  through  the  walls  of  sleep 
And  dragged  me  upward  even  to  his  arms. 
In  our  white  town  where  my  dear  sisters  sit 
There  is  no  comfort  like  they  laid  away, 
And  the  faint  myrrh  is  sweet  about  him  still. 

"Oh,  God  my  Father,  grant  that  my  strong  lips 
Shall  blossom  on  him  red  as  our  deep  love, 
My  arms  cleave  to  him  and  my  heart  awake 
Remembrance  of  old  stirrings  of  the  blood, 
My  hands  bring  healing,  and  my  feet  yield  life. 
He  is  so  strong,  so  young,  so  brave,  so  true, 
He  has  within  him  all  the  goodly  springs 
Unsquandered  and  unwasted,  deep  and  clear: 
He  cannot  die  because  of  one  red  day. 
Even  the  Roman  turned  aside  the  blow, 
Sparing  the  shining  beauty  of  his  limbs; 
The  spear  has  pierced  him,  but  the  tip  was  love. 
He  cannot  die,  he  is  not  dead,  not  dead. 

"See,  I  have  come,  my  Father,  past  the  guard, 
I  waited  for  the  lightning  and  the  storm, 
The  shuddering  earth  that  shook  aside  the  stone 
And  let  me  in  to  call  upon  his  name. 
And  I  have  warmed  him,  lips  and  breast  and  all, 
Given  my  youth  and  all  the  strength  of  love, 
He  cannot  die,  he  is  not  dead,  not  dead." 
[120] 


THE  BUILDER:  II 

I  thought  there  came  a  light  within  the  dark, 
A  little  radiance  and  a  growing  flame, 
A  flutter  of  the  eyelid  and  a  slow  deep  breath, 
The  dead  lips  stirred  and  met  the  lips  that  clung, 
And  life  came  back  within  the  arms  of  God. 
Then  he  that  was  sore  wounded  unto  death 
Knew  his  good  friend  and  said,  "I  have  but  slept." 

With  morning  stooped  a  woman  to  the  tomb 
Where  two  men  sat,  and  she  became  afraid 
And  ran  to  tell  the  others,  weeping  sore 
That  he  was  gone  whom  she  had  come  to  bathe. 

I  thought  within  a  garden  once  she  knelt 
And  tried  to  touch  him  whom  great  love  had  healed 
But  he  cried  out  and  gave  her  not  her  will, 
Whereat  his  heart  went  dead  for  a  great  space 
Because  he  loved  her  with  exceeding  love 
And  would  have  wed  her  for  the  love  he  bore. 

I  thought  he  showed  himself  among  his  friends 
Within  a  room  where  one  felt  of  his  hands 
And  knelt  before  him,  crying,  "Thou  art  he"; 
Or  on  the  shore  he  showed  them  where  to  cast 
As  in  the  days  before  the  great  red  day, 
And  one  upon  the  sand  cried,  "Thou  art  he." 

And  then  because  he  knew  his  work  was  done 
On  that  high  hill  where  he  had  hung  till  dark, 
Proving  that  he  was  steadfast  unto  death, 
Giving  his  life  as  witness  to  the  truth 
[121] 


THE  BUILDER:  II 

That  men  so  loved  that  they  could  die  for  love 
And  set  a  witness  on  the  hills  of  time; 
Because  it  seemed  that  he  had  suffered  much, 
And  he  was  young,  and  life  held  something  still, 
And  God  had  tried  and  found  him  to  be  true; 
Because  he  knew  that  he  had  done  enough 
And  God  was  strong  to  finish  what  he  left, 
Leading  men's  hearts  to  that  high  sacrifice 
As  to  an  altar, — so  he  met  his  friends 
And  one  day  left  them,  passing  from  the  hill 
Where  he  had  told  them  much  of  goodly  cheer. 
Then  to  a  far  country  made  his  unknown  way 
And  builded  flat-roofed  houses  straight  and  true, 
Yet  never  spoke  of  what  he  left  behind. 

For  then  it  seemed  he  found  another  Truth 
Beside  the  one  he  learned  on  the  high  hill, 
That  to  build  houses  is  a  work  of  God, 
To  set  them  level,  raise  them  square  and  strong, 
Where  children  may  find  shelter,  and  love  nest, 
And  women  spin,  and  men  smile  in  their  sleep; 
That  Labor  is  a  worship  fair  as  Love, 
And  God  is  but  a  Master  Artisan 
Who  builds  a  Temple  in  His  Universe 
Alike  within  men's  hearts  as  in  the  sun. 

So  as  his  shavings  scattered  from  his  plane, 
"They  are  my  prayers,"  he  said  half-smilingly; 
And  as  he  set  a  house-beam  in  its  place, 
"I  am  like  God,"  he  said,  "Who  high  in  heaven 
[122] 


THE  BUILDER:  II 

Hangs  the  great  ridge-pole  of  the  Milky  Way"; 
And  when  there  came  a  boy  to  learn  his  trade, 
He  loved  him  with  exceedingly  great  love 
Because  he  seemed  unto  him  as  a  son; 
And  as  he  taught  the  lad  to  fashion  straight, 
"He  is  the  priest  who  knows  the  false  from  true, 
And  he  shall  shape  anew  a  living  God 
And  never  know  the  thing  that  he  hath  done." 

Behold,  my  lad,  the  evening  star  has  come, 
And  these  old  wounds  within  my  hands  grow  fresh — 
I  hurt  them  once  when  my  great  hammer  swerved, — 
I  cannot  talk  the  night  away  as  once 
When  I  was  younger,  yet  these  arms  of  mine 
Have  some  good  labor  left  within  them  still. 

So  now,  good-night,  I  leave  you  to  your  dreams. 
God  keep  you,  boy;  to-morrow  brings  us  work, 
And  work  is  blessing  and  a  house  of  peace. 


[123] 


UPON  THE  VATICAN 

I  AM  a  Jew,  amenable  to  your  law 

That  here  upon  the  Vatican  I  die 

To  make  a  Roman  festival.    Twere  well 

If  ye  should  bind  me  firmly  when  ye  bind, 

Head  down,  arms  and  legs  thrown  wide.    Drive  deep — 

Perhaps  such  searching  nails  may  find  the  truth. 

Ye  need  not  shrink;  no  longer  is  my  hand 
Instant  to  anger;  my  sword  has  dulled  its  edge. 
You  will  permit,  my  masters,  out  of  grace, 
A  fisherman  whose  hands  have  mended  nets 
A  little  while  to  bring  his  fish  to  land, 
Brown  memories  and  little  silvery  thoughts: 
I  was  not  much  for  talking  in  those  days. 

Not  much  for  talking,  but  I  loved  him  deep; 
Not  even  John,  lad  of  the  shining  hair, 
Dared  leap  to  meet  him  walking  by  the  sea, 
Or  knew  that  little  trick  of  hand  and  arm 
That  tossed  the  shimmering  beauty  on  the  shore. 
On  me  he  said  his  secret  house  should  stand, 
The  Church  Invisible  that  holds  men's  hearts 
Like  nesting  birds  within  the  clefted  rock. 
Simon  I  was,  but  now  I  am  the  Rock. 

Aye,  even  though  I  hear  the  drunken  populace 
Of  an  ensanguined  Rome  loll  to  applaud 
Yon  purple  emperor  whose  most  holy  zeal 
Is  ridding  his  world  of  Christian  infidels, 

C"4] 


UPON  THE  VATICAN 

Through  drooping  vine  leaves,  insolent  with  song, 
Pampered  by  slave-girls,  this,  this  is  not  Romel 
There  is  another  Citadel  of  God, 
And  it  is  builded  on  no  shaken  sands 
But  on  immense  and  granite  permanence. 
Simon  I  was,  I  am,  I  am  the  Rock. 

Out  of  much  testing  is  the  center  proved, 
The  corn  threshed  in  the  ear,  and  quietly 
Man  grows  to  understanding  like  a  child 
Grateful  at  last  for  that  swift  chastening 
Which  healed  him  worthy  of  his  Father's  house; 
For  though  he  enter  on  belated  feet 
Creeping  at  midnight  through  the  silent  halls 
To  that  one  room  prepared,  the  grace  of  God 
Like  to  a  mother  waking,  calls  his  name, 
"I  knew  your  footfall;  welcome  home,  my  son." 

O  Grace  of  Christ,  white  nester  of  the  heart, 
And  brooding  Dove  whose  silence  is  its  song, 
Not  flesh  and  bone  have  whispered  of  the  truth 
But  faith  alone  reveals  the  living  God. 
But  faith,  what  faith?    Not  only  that  which  bows 
In  acquiescent  silence  at  the  shrine 
Ablaze  with  constellations,  but  the  wrestling  soul 
That  meets  each  day  its  wan  Gethsemane 
And  just  wins  through  to  anguish,  brokenly. 
He  knows  not  peace  who  may  not  stride  the  storm. 
And  I  who  failed  him,  left  him  hedged  with  thorns, 
Beaten  and  mocked  and  brave  and  shadow-eyed, 

[125] 


UPON  THE  VATICAN 

Him  the  dear  lover,  comrade,  teacher,  friend, 
The  man  who  burst  the  ancient  dread  of  death 
And  by  great  loving  beat  the  darkness  down, 
I  who  had  heard  three  times  the  cock  that  crew 
And  knew  he  loved  me  not  alone  for  this 
Great,  golden  body  and  impetuous  faith, 
But  loved  me  best  when  I  denied  him  most 
And  called  me  to  him  with  still  patient  eyes 
Jesting  at  sorrow — I  know,  I  know  at  last. 

He  is  the  Christ,  I  say  not  was  but  is, 
The  quiet  walker  of  the  windy  stars, 
Familiar  with  his  immortality 
And  unabashed  by  cocks  that  crow  him  nay, 
Young  as  creation,  ancient  as  the  hills, 
Walker  of  deserts,  coucher  with  the  slain, 
Lips  of  the  lover,  mother's  feeding  breast, 
Doubter  and  doubt,  and  everlasting  aye, 
The  hound  of  heaven,  wanderer  of  God. 

For  if  a  man  have  power  to  save  his  world 
By  loving  much,  how  shall  we  think  it  strange 
If  he  return  to  walk  again  with  men 
In  every  land,  in  every  century? 
This  do  I  know,  who  have  seen  many  lands, 
That  down  the  gray  traditions  of  the  years 
Walks  many  a  wanderer  with  a  face  like  his, 
And  I  have  knowledge  of  the  road  he  came. 
The  grace  of  God  will  walk  his  world  again; 
Men  shall  not  lack  the  comfort  of  God's  kiss. 

[126] 


UPON  THE  VATICAN 

"Remember  this,"  he  spake  and  broke  the  Bread, 
"Ye  whom  I  loved  that  ye  might  know  the  way 
To  scatter  friendship  through  the  hearts  of  men: 
Whene'er  ye  break  the  bread  of  comradeship 
Whether  in  homes  where  children  laugh  and  cling, 
Or  with  the  aged  sitting  with  their  dreams, 
Or  with  the  young,  the  strong  who  take  the  shade 
Where  the  mown  grass  dries  in  the  ruddy  suq, 
That  I  am  Love,  and  ye  shall  find  my  face 
Reflected  in  the  eyes  of  those  you  love 
And  in  great  longing  know  that  I  am  there. 
I  am  the  bread  that  fills  you  day  and  night, 
I  am  the  wine  of  perfect  friendliness; 
And  whosoever  shall  remember  this 
Memorial  of  parting  in  a  quiet  room 
Where  twelve  dear  friends  gave  each  the  kiss  of  peace, 
Shall  hold  his  own  Last  Supper  in  my  name. 
As  I  have  loved  you,  friends,  feed  thou  my  sheep." 


And  yet  not  this  could  compass  me  with  wings 
Upon  this  hill  where  I  shall  meet  my  death 
Head  downward  swooning  on  a  bloody  cross: 
What  should  I  fear  who  have  beheld  my  God? 
I  am  an  old  man,  yet  youth  is  in  my  heart 
Who  have  discerned  with  younger  eyes  the  truth. 
There  are  strange  things  that  falter  at  the  sense 
Of  sight  and  hearing,  things  we  cannot  touch, 
And  scarcely  even  know,  till  in  a  flame 
Sudden  there  bursts  a  sense  within  the  sense 

[127] 


UPON  THE  VATICAN 

Of  hearing,  seeing, — and  men  name  it  death. 

How  shall  one  chart  that  chronicle  of  faith 

Whose  hands  are  touching  parchment  and  pen  alone? 

A  traveler  sets  out  upon  a  distant  road, 

Finds  an  inn,  pays  his  host,  and  sleeps, 

And  all  night  long  the  road  runs  by  his  door. 


To-day  Paul  dies,  wrapped  in  a  sheet  of  flame 
In  this  same  festival  of  Lupercal; 
His  body  will  shed  ash  upon  the  wind. 
Paul  says  that  in  the  judgment  of  the  dead 
The  dust  shall  quiver,  bodies  rise  again 
In  old  habitual  flesh  and  blood  and  bone 
Familiar  .  .  .  I  do  not  hold  with  Paul. 
For  in  a  life-time  I  have  outgrown  my  shell 
Over  and  over,  cast  aside  the  clay, 
And  am  not  now  the  same  in  any  part; 
If  bodies  rise,  which  body  will  return? 


Nay,  Paul  is  wrong;  he  never  talked  with  Him 
Who  swore  the  soul  may  pass  but  never  die, 
Entering  again  such  house  as  time  shall  raise 
Fit  for  his  dwelling,  but  never  the  old  walls; 
For  when  the  beams  decay,  we  build  anew, 
Remembering  the  old  home  and  its  graciousness 
Of  thronging  threshold  and  of  sheltering  roof, — 
Who  would  put  new  wine  into  musty  jars 
Except  the  fragrance  of  the  musk  be  there? 

[128] 


UPON  THE  VATICAN 

Nay,  Paul  is  wrong;  he  hath  not  seen  his  God 
As  I  have  seen  Him  walking  in  the  dim 
Young  twilight  near  the  open  tomb.  .   .   . 
Ashes  to  ashes,  but  spirit  walks  in  flame. 

There  shall  come  men  who  will  obscure  the  truth, 
Saying  the  body,  as  Egyptians  do, 
Must  be  preserved  against  the  day  of  doom, 
Or  the  soul  perish.  .  .  .  The  soul  can  never  die. 
For  though  the  body  molder  stone  by  stone 
And  in  three  days  dissolve  to  whence  it  came, 
Insensate  earth  and  groping  root  of  tree, 
The  spirit  walks  with  peace  upon  its  lips, 
Returning  to  those  who,  waiting  in  the  flesh, 
Have  yet  clear  eyes  to  see  beyond  the  grave, 
And  know  no  partings  and  no  distances 
But  only  that  their  love  is  deeper  now, 
More  tender-true,  more  near,  more  intimate. 

This  is  the  victory  of  Christ  in  death 
That  many  dreamed  like  Socrates  the  truth, 
But  only  He  first  shook  aside  the  tomb 
With  the  glad  triumph  of  a  known  return. 
Take  care  ye  know  Him  when  he  pass  you  by. 

.  .  .  And  with  this  cast  I  draw  my  net  to  land. 


[129] 


DAWN 

THERE  is  a  Watcher  on  the  walls  of  Time 

Who  waits  the  coming  day; 

From  headland  to  blown  headland  spreads  the  flame, 

And  Troy  is  far  away; 

Helen  has  led  her  maidens  to  the  tower, 

Leda's  sons  are  clay; 

Hector's  body  lies  a  broken  flower, — 

The  Watcher  waits  alway! 

When  shall  it  dawn,  the  day  of  perfect  peace, 

The  King  come  home  to  rest? 

The  Watcher  waits,  the  dawn  is  far  away, 

Hector  is  slain,  and  Helen's  lovely  breast 

Flowers  with  the  May; 

Paris  lies  low,  Achilles  cannot  stay: 

From  headland  to  blown  headland  leaps  the  flame, — 

The  Watcher  waits  alway! 

There  is  a  Watcher,  and  he  will  not  fail; 

He  sees,  beyond  the  dark, 

A  little  light  that  climbs  like  a  dim  star: 

His  great,  glad  voice,  oh,  hark! — 

"Waken,  ye  sleepers,  Ilium  is  dust, 

Lift  up  your  voices,  strike  the  hillsides  dumb; 

Even  while  ye  were  dreaming  of  the  war, 

The  King  of  Peace  has  cornel 


[130] 


THE  SEVENTH  VIAL 

THESE  are  the  days  when  men  draw  pens  for  swords 

Hurling  hysteric  bombs  of  epithets. 
And  girding  on  the  glory  of  great  words, 

Storm  the  embarrassed  parapets. 
Words,  words, — "Democracy!"  they  cry, 
Who  pass  their  neighbors  with  averted  eye. 


America,  my  country,  not  with  the  lesser  love 
Do  I,  thy  son  and  lover,  set  the  flame 

Cleansing  thy  shame, 

But  only  that  I  know  what  love  is  molded  of, 
That  here  for  us  in  these  United  States 

Where  still  the  dullard  prates 

Of  the  propitious  fates, 
Democracy  as  yet  is  but  a  name! 


A  name  for  demagogs  to  juggle  facilely, 
A  tinsel  ball  to  catch  the  crowd  and  mock  it 
While  deft  confederates  with  razor-edge  set  free 
The  staring  burgher's  plump  distended  pocket. 


The  trumpet  blows  to  war  and  youth  upstarts 

With  shaken  hearts, 
Stirring  to  all  old  splendors  of  the  past, 
Knowing  that  we  are  heritors  of  glory 
Whose  names  shall  stand  in  story: 

The  die  for  us  irrevocably  is  cast. 
[131] 


THE  SEVENTH  VIAL 

For  youth  has  never  shrunk  to  pay  the  price 
Of  the  recurrent  sacrifice. 

It  is  youth's  prerogative  to  do 

What  gray  age  tells  them  to, 

With  song  upon  our  lips 

Facing  the  last  eclipse; 
Death  never  waits  to  summon  young  men  twice. 


Youth  is  ready  to  lay  down 
Strength  of  foot  and  body  brown, 
Glow  of  life  and  red  of  lip, 
Supple  knee  and  clinging  hip, 
Sting  of  health  and  gracious  breath, 
All  to  weave  a  crown  for  Death. 
Youth  is  ready,  stripped  to  run 
That  immortal  Marathon. 


And  so  the  khaki  clothes  glad  limbs  once  more, 
The  rifle's  shouldered,  and  the  quick-step  starts, 
The  old  flag  billows,  deep  male  cannons  roar, 

And  honor  draws  our  hearts. 
To  die  for  one's  country,  that  is  bliss — 

But  what  of  this: 


Old  men  have  a  bitter  tongue, 
"So  were  we  when  we  were  young; 
Now  that  we  have  wavering  knees, 
Blessing  jail  on  subtleties! 


THE  SEVENTH  VIAL 

"Youth  would  find  a  joe  to  fight 
When  his  heels  and  heart  are  light; 
Now  that  we  have  wavering  knees, 
Blessing  jail  on  subtleties!" 

Ah,  old  gray-beards,  howdy-do, 
Here's  subtlety  for  you: 

Out  of  the  crush  of  cities,  maddening  lights, 
Exotic  gardens  of  obscene  delights, 
The  turmoil  of  the  elevated  overhead, 
Faces  that  one  passes  set  and  dead, 
Men's  faces  with  slack  creases  at  the  lips, 
And  women  mostly  eyes  and  smell  and  hips; 

There  burns  one  vision  of  a  summer  night, 
The  night  that  England  set  her  hand  to  war, 
Remembering  her  Waterloo  and  Trafalgar, 
And  men  had  gathered  in  the  midnight  glare 
To  watch  the  bill-boards  posted  at  Times  Square. 
When  I  saw  the  German  waiter  who  had  lately  brought 

my  dinner 
Stand  beside  me  in  the  crowd  with  face  grown  sudden 

thinner, 

And  hand  met  hand  but  with  a  manlier  grip 
Than  I  suspected  when  he  palmed  my  tip: 

"You're  going?"    "Yes,  the  'Vaterland.' 
She  sails  on  Wednesday.    And  I'm  glad  to  go." 

"Auf  Wiedersehn— " 

He'll  not  come  back,  I  know, 
Yet  I  am  glad  I  knew  that  different  hand. 
[133] 


THE  SEVENTH  VIAL 

Just  as  the  sense  of  all  it  meant  struck  home, 
The  broken  bodies  spumed  with  bloody  foam, 
The  tousle-headed  boys  who  scarcely  knew 
One  of  life's  joys  before  death  thrust  them  through, 
Staggering  women  learning  how  to  plow 
And  children  starving  for  milk  of  one  lean  cow, 
There  in  the  crowd  upon  the  unshamed  Square 
I  saw  two  men  and  a  woman  with  red  hair. 
Her  white  arms  gleaming,  with  dimples  in  the  bends 
Familiar  with  the  shoulders  of  her  friends; 
Two  men,  one  woman,  but  they  scuffled  there, — 
Let  Europe  tumble,  ten  million  young  men  die, 
"Aw,  quit  your  kidding,  you're  the  lucky  guy, 
This  is  the  life" — it's  midnight  in  Times  Square! 

Not  in  Manhattan  only 

But  in  lonely 

Forgotten  villages  upon  the  plains 
Men  still  are  forging  their  invisible  chains 

Out  of  misplaced  endeavor 
That  bind  them  to  hoar  Caucasus  forever. 

America  is  still  the  awkward  boy, 

Hobbledehoy, 
Knowing  no  joy  except  in  birds'  nests  or  the  mood's 

employ, 

Stranger  to  heart-sweetening  laughter, 
Tooting  horns  and  running  after 
Each  his  own  peculiar  grafter, 

Reckless  in  all  things,  trying  all  by  turns, 
Here  hits  the  saw-dust  trail,  there  a  negro  burns, 
[134] 


THE  SEVENTH  VIAL 

Mortgages  his  home  to  buy  a  motor-car 
Still  hitching  wagons  to  a  darkened  star, 
With  something  still  of  the  strange  whim  of  boys, 
Thinking  that  man  most  great  who  makes  the  loudest 
noise. 


And  yet  we  need  not  be  the  thing  we  are. 
There  is  a  greater  war, 

The  War  at  home! 
And  though  we  go  abroad 
With  the  avenging  rod 
Calling  ourselves  from  God, 
Upholding  now  the  desperate  hands  of  France 

In  crater-scarred  advance. 
And  though  to  Mother  England  now  we  swarm 

Under  her  wearying  arm, 
And  though  to  Russia  we  in  faith  extend 

The  warm  hand  of  a  friend, 
Restore  to  Belgium  all  of  what  she  lost 

Haloed  in  holocaust, 
And  though  we  win  and  break  the  brutal  Hun — 

Our  task  will  not  be  done, 
But  just  begun. 


There  is  a  War,  a  greater  War,  at  home, 
Not  whistled  by  shrill  fife, 
But  still  a  war  to  knife, 
For  more  than  life. 

[135] 


THE  SEVENTH  VIAL 

America  has  need,  oh,  pitiful,  utmost  need 
Of  the  old  breed  here  in  our  weakened  seed 

The  spawn  of  mighty  fathers,  Jeffersons  and  Lincolns, 
Washingtons, 

And  shrewd-eyed  "Richard"  with  his  almanac. 
We  have  lacked  something,  we  oblivious  sons, 

Something  we  must  win  back. 


A  few  there  are  by  some  direction  sent 
As  if  our  fathers  still  were  provident, 
And  gave  us  in  this  hour,  a  president. 

Thank  God,  thank  God  for  Wilson! 

He  has  set 
His  hand  against  all  bluster  and  it  dies,- 

The  ancient  verities  are  with  us  yet. 

This  is  the  hour  I  saw  the  angel  stand 
The  seventh  vial  in  his  hand. 


This  is  the  Armageddon  prophet-told 

When  seven  hills  give  up  the  dead  they  hold. 

When  shines  the  angel  in  the  bloody  sun 
And  in  the  darkness  Caesar  is  undone. 


This  is  the  day  the  flaming  planet  swings 
Back  to  the  sun  from  lonely  wanderings. 
[136] 


THE  SEVENTH  VIAL 


And  this  the  revelation  shall  not  cease 

Till  ye  have  seen  the  perfect  Prince  of  Peace. 

So,  oh,  my  country,  follow,  follow  far; 
Though  this  is  war,  there  is  another  Warl, 


[i37l 


ARMAGEDDON 

THE  gods  of  war  have  tossed  the  apple  of  death 
Into  the  peaceful  laps  of  reluctant  nations, 
The  clock  of  Europe  is  set  back  six  thousand  years 
And  the  Servian  peasants  leave  ungathered  harvests 
To  be  mown  down  in  an  unnameable  garnering. 

I  see  a  sorrowing  face  lifted  in  a  far  garden, 
I  hear  a  voice  upon  a  lonely  hill, 
Nay,  I  see  uncountable  millions  of  faces 
Of  women  and  huddled  children  and  helpless  old  people, 
And  the  pale  unafraid  faces  of  strong  men  going  to  be 
cut  down. 

It  is  the  desperate  rally  of  expiring  feudalism, 
It  is  the  last  crucifixion  of  the  rights  of  man, 
It  is  the  resurrection  and  the  day  of  judgment 
Pronounced  upon  the  war-gods  by  unescapable  wisdom 
That  men  may  learn  the  imperative  necessity  of  avoid 
ing  war. 


[138] 


PATINS 

(I  cannot  imagine  what  I  do  not  remember.) 

THERE  is  a  crag  in  Thessaly 
Where  the  grass  is  green 
Like  the  greenness  in  my  heart. 

.  .  I  am  very  far  from  you, 
And  I  cannot  find  my  sheep. 

This  I  know,  that  when  the  door  of  the  temple  opened 
And  the  high  priest  came  down  to  the  edge  of  the  water, 
I  could  almost  have  touched  him, 

If  it  were  not  for  the  sound  of  the  camels  breathing, 
I  should  think  there  were  not  even  nearness. 

Hand  round  the  great  cup  with  the  horn  handle, 

Lady  of  the  broad  girdle; 

I  have  brought  home  buck-antlers. 

If  it  should  be  as  you  say 
Then  the  pigeon  shall  fly  home  by  evening, 
But  do  not  tarry  longer  than  the  hour  of  the  moon's 
rising. 

Stand  where  the  street  branches  on  the  way  to  the 

Circus; 

But  do  not  look  at  me  in  the  procession ; 
I  shall  be  leading  the  chanting. 
[139] 


PATINS 

I  think,  when  he  snores  like  that, 

That  his  horse  is  impatient. 

It  would  not  do,  though,  to  drop  the  hanging. 

You  say  you  have  slaughtered  the  chief  of  the  neigh 
boring  nation: 

I  will  believe  you  when  you  bring  me  his  tooth  of  black 
agate. 

It  is  enough,  Madame,  I  begin  to  understand  you. 

I  regret  the  position  in  which  I  think  you  will  find  him ; 

He  had  a  sweet  treble. 

When  the  lash  eats,  I  think  it  will  not  be  forever. 
Last  night  I  thrust  the  lentils  out  at  the  oar-lock  while 
the  sentry  was  drowsing. 

When  the  ripe  dates  fall   to  the  ground  for  lack  of 

plucking 

I  will  set  my  hand  to  the  window, 
And  there  will  be  no  more  sleeping. 

The  black  cow  to-day  would  not  cross  with  the  others, 
And  all  underneath  her  the  turf  was  quaking: 
It  will  be  a  sign  of  the  faring. 

The  wall,  my  lord,  is  very  high, 
But  will  it  keep  out  folly? 

[140] 


PATINS 

If  her  breasts  were  fuller  she  would  make  no  better 

model, 
But  I  cannot  use  such  lashes  for  my  Madonna. 

When  the  great  conch  blows  I  must  leave  you, 
For  the  gods  when  they  are  carven  of  green  jade 
Are  inscrutable. 

I  do  not  know  why  that  star  should  have  a  way  of 

looking 

As  if  he  could  hear  us  even  among  the  green  rushes. 
To-morrow  night  I  will  bind  him  with  the  thong  from 

my  loin-cloth, 
Eut  to-night  there  is  time  for  only  loving. 

You  think  they  are  dancing  around  the  May-pole: 

I  tell  you  I  have  seen  that  dance  before, 

And  it  is  not  for  nothing  it  is  pointed  with  an  acorn. 

Through  subterranean  corridors  beneath  the  wooded 
mountain  I  thread  the  rosy  labyrinth  of  warm  and 
yielding  walls, 

Seeking,  seeking.  .  .  . 

There  were  but  six  steps  that  led  down  to  the  judg 
ment-chamber, 

Yet  it  was  the  fourth  step  was  his  undoing. 

To-night  the  door  of  your  pavilion  may  be  left  un 
guarded. 


PATINS 

I  met  my  love  in  the  morning.  .  .  . 
She  was  coming  home  at  day-break, 
And  her  eyes  were  starry. 

All  I  know  is,  the  touch  of  an  ax  on  the  nape  of  the 

neck 
Is  soft  as  the  falling  of  snow-flakes  between  two  silent 

houses. 

Love,  if  they  should  tell  you  I  am  fallen,  do  not  believe 

them, 
For  even  were  I  to  meet  the  black  bane  it  would  be  but 

my  way  of  returning, 
Never  to  leave  you  again  though  an  hundred  battles 

were  calling. 

Even  though  your  body  blazes  in  this  red  morning, 
Forget  the  sea  of  faces  where  clenched  hands  are  tossing, 
And  in  a  little  while  we  shall  be  together 
Beyond  crucifixion. 

You  came  to  meet  me,  yet  I  tell  you, 
It  is  not  the  first  time  you  have  seen  me. 
If  it  were,  why  did  you  come  so  quickly? 


AN  INCANTATION 

BUILD  the  wigwam  close  and  secret, 
Bend  the  willow  boughs, 
Wind  the  sacred  forest  creeper 
Through  the  house. 

Heat  the  glowing  granite  boulder 
Till  it  scorches  brown 
The  green  birch  bark  we  shove  under. 
Set  it  down. 

Strip  him  naked,  loose  his  war-lock, 
Bind  his  arms  behind ; 
He  shall  see  the  sacred  spirits 
Of  his  kind. 

Cast  upon  the  fiery  granite 
In  the  center  ring 

Cool  clear  water  brought  by  maidens 
From  the  spring. 

Knit  the  door  with  wild-grape  tendrils, 
Leave  him  there  alone, 
Start  the  mournful  tom-tom's  wailing 
Monotone. 

Round  the  wigwam  dusky  bodies 
Glisten  all  the  night 
And  the  Spirit-maker  wears  an 
Elk-tooth  white. 

[143] 


AN  INCANTATION 


Little  fiery  lights  are  glancing 
Through  the  stifling  gloom, 
And  his  nostrils  sense  a  subtle 
Strange  perfume. 

Little  fiery  faces  glimmer, 
Little  hands  are  laid 
Cool  against  his  sweating  body 
Unafraid. 

And  the  voices  of  his  fathers 
Through  the  shadows  dim 
All  the  secrets  of  the  spirits 
Tell  to  him. 

Tell  him  where  the  tribe  shall  winter, 
What  new  enemies 

Have  come  creeping  through  the  marshes 
On  their  knees. 

Tell  him  that  the  Spirit-maker 
Walks  with  Manitou, 
That  his  voice  should  warn  the  peoples 
What  to  do. 

Louder  beat  the  muffled  tom-toms 
Through  the  stifling  steam 
And  the  throbbing  in  his  temples 
Is  like  flame. 

[144] 


AN  INCANTATION 


See,  the  eastern  sky  is  whiter 
And  the  stars  have  gone; 
Open  wide  the  sacred  wigwam 
With  the  dawn. 

Lift  him  out,  the  fainting  prophet,- 
Holy  is  he  now, 

For  thin  spirit  hands  have  rested 
On  his  brow. 

Nevermore  the  warriors  know  him 
In  his  empty  place, 
He  has  seen  the  Long  Departed 
Face  to  face. 

He  has  paid  the  price  of  vision, 
Looked  past  life  and  death; 
Sacred  in  the  tribal  councils 
What  he  saith. 

Manitou  has  breathed  upon  him 
And  his  eyes  are  deep; 
And  the  lips  that  spirits  greeted, 
Secrets  keep. 


[1451 


NOT  BY  SLEEP  MAY  WAKING  DEEM 

So  real  in  sleep  the  shadows  seem, 
So  near  and  intimate  the  theme, 
In  sooth,  I  know  not  how  it  seem 
Which  is  the  dream  within  the  dream. 

So  dim  in  day  do  red  suns  gleam, 
So  mistily  does  sunlight  stream, 
So  like  a  dream  that  dreamers  dream, 
In  sooth,  I  know  not  which  it  seem. 

Whether  a  dreamer  dream  or  no, 
To  dreams  both  dream  and  dreamer  go — 
And  not  by  sleep  may  waking  deem 
Which  is  the  dream  within  the  dream. 


[146] 


SOMETIMES 

SOMETIMES  when  I  go 
At  night  into  my  room 

And  press  the  tiny  bulb 
That  sets  it  all  abloom, 

I  think  that  when  I  pass 
Within  death's  friendly  door 

There  shall  be  more  of  Light 
Than  I  have  known  before. 


AFFIRMATION 

I  CANNOT  see  the  wind,  and  yet  it  draws 

By  secret  laws; 

The  moon  I  see,  yet  never  that  which  brings 
The  waters  welling  from  their  coraled  springs; 

And  when  the  rainbow  stands 

Over  the  shimmering  lands, 

I  think   some  ancient  promise  lifts  up  her  regal 
hands. 

I  have  known  many  a  friend — 

Come  from  the  world's  end 
Down  circling  stairways  of  recurring  years—* 

Stand  with  the  startled  grace 

Of  knowledge  in  his  face 
And  sudden  wonder  smiting  nigh  to  tears: 

So  now  I  dare  not  say 

In  any  careless  way 

That  death  could  be  so  dark  as  not  to  bring  the  day. 


[148] 


THE  CYCLE 

THERE  in  the  crowd  I  knew  him 
And  his  eyes  sought  my  face 

With  all  the  old  assurance 
Of  that  other  place 

Where  I  once  saw  receding 
His  eyes  of  steady  flame, 

And  heard  before  we  parted 
His  accents  form  my  name. 

Each  in  his  path  appointed 
Hath  breasted  bitter  years 

And  still  the  perfect  knowledge 
In  this  one  face  appears. 

Ah  me,  I  dared  not  tell  him 
Or  lift  my  hand  to  save 

The  thing  the  grave  had  yielded 
A  moment  from  the  grave. 

The  only  thing  I  carry 
Is  his  comprehending  face 

Who,  well  as  I,  remembers 
Our  parting  in  that  place. 


[149] 


WITNESS 

As  once  with  my  divinity 
I  won  the  hearts  of  men, 
So  now  in  this  humanity 
My  deathless  soul  again — 
That  you  might  understand  me 
And  know  the  road  I  came — 
Ascends  the  Hour  appointed 
Enrobed  in  living  flame. 


HAVE  I  BEEN  SO  LONG  TIME  WITH 
YOU4? 

Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  yet  you  do  not 

know  me 
Whose  feet  you  washed,  whose  bread  you  broke  upon 

the  eager  hill, 
Was  I  so  unlike  the  Bridegroom  who  you  said  would 

come  in  glory 
That  you  wait,  and  never  wonder  how  my  hand  is  on 

you  still? 


You  bow  the  knee,  you  sip  the  wine,  you  breathe  my 

name  before  me, 
You  say  I  called  the  dead  to  life,  but  slept  upon  a 

stone — 
Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  yet  you  do  not 

know  me 
Because  I  laughed  and  loved  you  and  bade  you  walk 

alone? 


If  I  had  faith  to  meet  with  death  and  wrest  all  terror 

from  him 
To  prove  how  jar  a  man  may  walk  who  knows  from 

whence  he  came, 
Do  you  think  the  spear  could  slay  my  soul  or  that  the 

tomb  could  hold  me 
Or  that  I  would  not  come  to  those  who  call  upon  my 

name? 


HAVE  I  BEEN  SO  LONG  TIME  WITH  YOU? 

I  bide  my  time,  I  keep  my  peace,  I  bind,  I  loose,  I  win*- 
now, 

I  bear  no  wounds  as  witnesses  in  hands  and  feet  and 
side; 

I  wear  instead  upon  my  brow  the  thorns  of  your  com 
placence, 

And  through  earth's  generations  my  heart  is  crucified. 

If  you  were  brave,  if  you  were  kind,  if  you  had  faith 

sufficient, 
ff  you  believed  the  things  you  say,  and  died  to  make 

them  true, 

I  should  not  need  to  come  again  returning  and  returning 
Through  all  the  lonely  centuries  and  Golgothas  for  you. 

Yet  I  am  He  whom  seas  obey,  who  take  the  wings  of 

morning, 
Whose  feet  are  on  the  mountain  peaks,  whose  messenger 

a  star — 
Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you  and  yet  you  do  not 

know  me, 
The  living  God  who  walks  beside  and  loves  you  as  you 

are? 


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